


Tell Me in the Sunshine

by SiryyGray



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt No Comfort, Kidnapping, Parental Riza Hawkeye, Parental Roy Mustang, Poison, Post-Promised Day, Team as Family, im sorry. no im not. yes I am, sad sad sad its just sad, you know i keep that mf tag ON ME
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-15 07:08:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28559592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SiryyGray/pseuds/SiryyGray
Summary: Al in stuck in a room with no windows and two beds.He doesn't know the time or the day and he doesn't know the stupid codes these people keep asking for.He doesn't know when someone will show up to get them out, or if Ed will last that long.
Relationships: Alphonse Elric & Edward Elric, Alphonse Elric & Team Mustang
Comments: 157
Kudos: 195





	1. he asks me if I believe in angels

**Author's Note:**

> CW: non-graphic violence and gun use.

Their first attempt at escaping ended terribly.

In fairness, many things ended terribly for them. Whether it be in childhood or the present luck was always pushing against them like they were boxers in a ring to a losing match.

This was definitely a losing match.

Al had never considered them very lucky in the first place and of course that meant monsters would come crawling out of the woodwork.

They’d waited, holding their breath, timing footsteps and using echos to measure all the spaces they couldn’t see. Ed had his ear pressed against the wall for what felt like an eternity and Al was starting to wonder if it was impatience, anxiety, or just fear that made his hands all twitchy then finally— _finally_ —Ed gave a sharp nod.

The signal to _go_ that he had been waiting for since they woke up after two dozen masked nobodies aimed pistols at the back of their heads and taken them in broad daylight. No one had been around to stop it, so the group took their time.

They'd appearance in an instant. That's how he counted things now. In _instants_.

“Hand’s behind your heads before we blow them off.” Said the man with a white skeleton painted across his eyes, wide open and pitch black like he’d sauntered out of a child’s nightmare.

The jerk had the audacity to get cocky about it too when Ed had obliged. He strolled up and went to grab the older by the jaw and even Al winced internally as his brother snapped and nearly took off the man’s finger.

Right around then it was revealed that the little spiel about cooperating lest they had a death wish _wasn’t a bluff._ Ed now had a thumbs width of a graze to prove it, carved in a burned, bloody line just above his collarbone. Al had managed to refrain from panicking then and there because for a split second all he could think was _they shot my brother_ and the edges of his vision were red.

And he _barely_...

He _barely_ managed to refrain from blowing the whole area up because they had the gall the _laugh_ at the way they both stiffened when the bullet flew from the mouth of a gun and a little wire-like trail of blood ran down to Ed’s fingertips.

They had laughed and he felt his hands flatten out, itching to move together, illogical though it was. A quick look from Ed quieted the raging flurries of the blacksmith’s forge that was his own temper. It was slower to build than his brother’s, but just as hot and these men were practically throwing gasoline onto the blaze.

Still, it was doused with that single glance like its own magic trick, blowing out a forest fire in one puff.

It was the same expression Ed was wearing not five minutes after he nodded; not four minutes after Al had struck his palms together and melted a hole in the wall; not three minutes after they went skidding around the corner of concrete corridors that all looked the same and wound in lazy circles; not two minutes after Al realized, with dread flooding into the back of his mouth and making his breath hitch, that there wasn’t an exit; not not one minute after the tens of guards caught up and hauled them back.

That very same expression dashed about in thick lines across his brother’s skin as hands latched onto their elbows and wrenched the chance of freedom away.

It was _apprehension_.

The look came in an _instant_ and then stayed in place.

The masks dragged them back, firearms drawn and trigger discipline non-existent if not liberal. The wall to the room they’d been left is was sealed up as though it had been plain concrete for years, never marred by alchemy, upheld as a responsibility passed on from father-wall to son-wall and so on.

It was a stupid thought, but it distracted him from the fact that they were still in the hands of an unannounced enemy.

A women swept into the room once they’d been tossed back inside, a strip of fabric tied around her head, only leaving her mouth uncovered. The seams were lined with teeth. It made her look ghastly and unsettling, even as she spoke in a calm tone that presumed they were just children.

They’d met this woman before.

She was the first person who greeted them after getting snatched up from the edges of East City. She introduced herself as Pike before the door had been bolted shut with chains rattling against the locks and informed them that she was looking for some information.

 _Pike_. Their personal warden. The name suited her toothy grin and slick steps, rosy, oily words dropping from her mouth and clinging to the walls. Her voice was so sugary it was nauseating and _overpowering_. She made Al’s spine go rigid and hair raised to stand at shameful attention with only a blank glance.

He hadn’t even been able to see her eyes, but the shiver it sent skating along his neck was real.

Here she was again, frowning at them. “Really?” She asked. “So soon? You just got here.”

Al glared with every drop of vitriol he had stored up behind his eyes and opened the dam so it could pour out. She just tutted and lowered her head. “You know none of this is necessary.”

“We don’t know the stupid codes.” Ed spat.

“Oh, well that’s a shame. Because you’ll be staying until you remember.” The smile lines and age-born wrinkles around her face curved into something deceptively sweet.

Al bit his tongue before profanities raced out unchecked.

Pike rounded on him with a sigh of exasperation like this was all normal and she hadn’t orchestrated two weeks of stalking in order to pluck them out of the world and throw them into a cell.

“You ought to take better care of your brother.” Her fingers splayed out, waving towards Ed. “He shouldn’t be up and about. I thought you’d be more pragmatic than that.”

He bit down harder and glowered. Pike just seemed disappointed. “Don’t forget that you’re on the clock. Your brother will be out of time soon if your memory doesn’t improve. What was the development rate again?” She walked in a slow circle, the sound of her heel skimming the ground like a battering ram against his ears. “One to four weeks, wasn’t it? Or have you already forgotten? You seem to do that rather often—“

“Shut up.”

One of the masks surged forward, hand raised to punch him across the face, but Pike held out her arm to stop them. “I meant what I said before about not _wanting_ to hurt you.”

Ed barked out a harsh laugh and sneered. “Should’ve thought about that before you stuck me with a needle.” He brandished his blistered arm with a vicious edge to each syllable that left his mouth, sharpened into razors. Pike was unfazed.

“We don’t want to hurt you.” She repeated. Ed calmly spat at her feet. Not even a flinch came of it. “But please don’t think this will be allowed again. Your legs are plenty expendable.”

Pike spun on her heel, practiced and scarily reminiscent of a ballerina toeing their way across a stage. It felt like one big performance as the goons parted down the middle and she danced right out of the room, taking the crowd of figures that blurred into an unidentifiable whole along with her.

The door slammed, hinges screeching and locks cinched in their spots like teeth gnashed together. It was a horrendously loud sound. When the squeal decided to stop its trek bouncing off the walls, the silence was ten times more deafening.

Al glanced towards his brother. “Are you—“

“I’m fine, Al. Just _mad_.”

So, yeah. First escape attempt was a bust.

* * *

The cell was hardly a cell at all.

It felt almost like a bedroom with cider brick walls and was by far the most courteous holding space he’d ever become acquainted with, but considering that only consisted of a timid cell at Briggs and the basement clubhouse of homunculus, the bar was pretty much on the floor. This place actually had a small washroom, complete with running water and no mirror.

It didn’t take long to puzzle out why: sharp edges weren’t a good thing to leave around captives.

There were two beds. Threadbare, bleached into thinness and cheap, but he collapsed onto it on that first night nonetheless. What Al _assumed_ was the first night, at least. The lights were perpetually half on with no switch in sight, along with no windows. Not even one with bars or mesh strewn across it. The light was artificial and they were robbed of sunlight altogether. 

Al would’ve preferred _that_ to the crushing feeling of not knowing what time of the day or was, or what day of the week it was.

Al missed the sun more than he was willing to admit.

It was a frightening surge that came and went in patternless intervals, and what was it, really? The simple absence of fact. That’s all.

He's an alchemist. Fact is what runs through his veins alongside blood.

Somehow it shook him right down to his middle where dread was burrowing through his stomach lining enthusiastically like some kind of monster, teeth bloodied from gnawing and making his heart stumble around uselessly.

And wow did it stumble. Right up into his throat as the very clear threats started to sink in.

Al couldn’t tell the time and that was terrifying because he didn’t know how long Ed had. He had no idea what symptoms to be looking for, what warning signs would flourish outward into view or what things stayed hidden.

All he knew for certain was that Ed needed to get to a hospital.

That was it.

The uncertainty was maddening. He had paced the length of the room, wall to wall and muttering under his breath.

Ed, by comparison, was a lot more calm. He talked Al down from trying to run again, kept a hand on his shoulder, and, with all the sweetness and delicacy of a bull with caffeine and cyanide for blood, told him to sit the hell down and sleep before he gave himself a stroke.

The springs of the mattress were creakier than the floorboards of a old house where someone mysteriously died. He couldn’t sleep.

Al stared at the wall, catching the breath that ran away as he counted the cracks on between the bricks and committed each scratch to memory simply because there was nothing else to do.

Ed was turned on his side, facing away and still as could be. Nothing seemed wrong yet. Al had a suspicion that he wasn’t finding and pleasantries in dreams either—he was never that motionless, not even at night, Al knew—but decided not to go poking any holes in whatever comfort his brother had managed to scrape together.

What right did Al have to take that away? None. None at all.

Ed was the one who was dying, after all.

Ed was dying.

His brother was dying.

It washed over him again and again. Al felt nauseous and his mouth was dry. The twisting demon in his stomach grew all the more frenzied and swallowed up his organs in a greedy, languid spin of slow tears and quick slices. He felt it ripping through him, bit by bit, spilling pint by pint of his blood until it felt like he couldn’t breathe and one long, spindly claw lodged into his heart, piercing the back of his throat.

There was blood in the water and he was helpless to stop it.

They're on the clock.

_Your brother will be out of time soon if your memory doesn’t improve._

He didn’t know. Neither of them did. They didn’t know where they'd been taken or who these people were or how much time was passing or if anyone knew they were missing or the _stupid fucking codes or—_

_—how long Ed had._

* * *

“It’s a bad idea, I know, but we have no clue when it’s going to start taking effect and—and I can’t do this alone.”

“There’s no exit.” Ed pointed out.

He countered just a quick. “I can make one.”

“It could collapse this whole place on top of us.”

“It’s better than just waiting for a rescue team that might not be coming!” They were arguing again like they did when they were little kids, back and forth until someone came out on top. Had they every really _stopped_ being kids?

“Al...“ Ed did it in that special tone that was reserved for his brother and it clicked his own frustration into sharp focus. Clarity couldn’t have been more ill-timed.

“Don’t you _Al_ me.” He snapped. “I’m not going to just sit here while you’re—while you just _slowly_ —“ He could hear the heavy pounding notes of desperation underscoring his words and the way his voice wobbled a little made him want to drive his fist into a wall.

But he couldn’t do that anymore because his hand would break and his knuckles would split.

He couldn’t do that because he could feel pain again and for an instant he loathed that.

He couldn’t do that because he needed to _be_ _there_ _right now_ because Ed was slipping right between his fingers and _they didn’t know anything—_

  
Ed cut him of gently. “I _know_.” A hand rested on Al’s shoulder, grounding and comforting, but dragging him downwards like an anchor all the same. Ed’s lips thinned with a wane smile. It was terribly unlike him. “Just listen for a second, okay? Then we can decide.”

“Okay.” Al breathed, gaze dropping to his feet. “Okay, I’m listening.”

“If we try to take off again, they’re going to shoot one of us.” His hand hovered above the graze on his shoulder, still too fresh to touch and yet the most striking piece of evidence to his claim. To his extremely, unsettlingly _true_ claim. “They weren’t just talking big: all their shit is filled with live rounds. So if we go now and we’re caught…”

“Then we can’t do it again.” Al finished. “But if you suddenly get sick then it’ll be for nothing.” The dread still rang true like a goddamn bell caught in a hurricane: it never stopped.

“Are you sure?” Ed asked carefully.

Al drew in a long breath, pulling his shoulders back and fixing his posture, expression ironed out by that blacksmiths forge and a dash of determination for good measure. He nodded. “Positive.”

* * *

They were caught again.

_Just like when they were kids, huh._

Ed fought tooth and nail to keep them away from Al, but when it was ten against one and the tens all had guns to press against the one’s skull, it didn’t matter. He fought anyways and Al wanted to shout at him to stop.

He never got a chance because Pike had stepped in, swathed in shadowy clothing and still tsk-ing away at them as she loaded up a pistol and laid the muzzle down to rest against the flesh just above his ankle.The cool touch of metal made Al freeze and again the honey in her voice was disgusting and motherly.

“I warned you, didn’t I. Yes, I said stay put, and you go and try to sneak off.” She said. “You’ll be here until your memory returns to you. Sorry about this, but I went through too much trouble to get you both in the first place. Don’t bite your lip in half.”

Al didn’t even hear the trigger be pulled. No click or bang or echo. Just a jolt through his leg and clamping down on the wound with both hands as it started to drone out a few rivulets of scarlet, bright against his hands and brighter against the floor.

Al didn’t hear it happen.

He heard Ed, though.

His brother swore and snarled and Pike rolled her head, neck snapping and cracking while Al gripped his leg. There was someone beside him, prying off his hands and stringing gauze around the limb. They knew what they were doing.

They muttered something to him through the haze and Al knew it was only a little worse than the bullet that nicked Ed at the start, but the words were only a buzz compared to the quiet hiss of a dynamite fuse coming from Ed’s throat.

“You’re fucking _stupid_.”

“I don’t accept the words of a dead man walking.” She glanced down. “Unless you suddenly, magically remembered those codes. You could be on your merry way!”

“We don’t know. How many time do you need to hear that?!”

“You're making this worse on yourselves. I don’t want you to be here any more than you do. I’m only after one little thing and this would be over if you just...”

Al glowered as the sentence trailed. She crossed her arms.

“Your loss. Keep trying, hum? I trust you’ll be comfortable here until you remember. You’re still on the clock, kids.”

* * *

The awful thing was they _were_ pretty comfortable. Superficially so, because Al’s mind was racing madly and spiralling down a stairway to hell.

Yay.

The door opened every so often—there was still no way to keep track of time; it could’ve been on the hour or every other day—and the view to the outside would be blocked by six masks with their arms folded over their chests and weapons on their backs.

The same person came forward each time with a red slash of paint across the material blocking their face, feet turned out as they walked like a challenge.

_Go ahead, bite the hand that feeds you._

They never spoke, just strode forward with a bundled piece of cloth and dropped it down in front of them.

Al glared while Ed told them, in as many words, to find a cliff to jump off of. Each little bundle was the exact same: half a loaf of bread, three oranges and a note.

 _Reconsider_ , it read, in sweeping, delicate handwriting. Ed made a point to tear it in two before the door shut again.

The drop off happened often enough that neither of them were particularly hungry. It felt almost like they’d just been put under house arrest, biding their time and unable to do more than kick at the walls as though that would quell the boredom or release the bubbling bought of nervousness. It just made his shoes scuffed and torn.

It wasn't house arrest, though. There was no sun to tell them how long it had been and there was a more metaphorical shoe waiting to drop.

Ed was dying.

No one ever acknowledged them.

It was infuriating and unsettling. Slowly, the truth of the situation was sinking its teeth in and despite the fact that he knew nothing else, Al knew they didn’t care.

They didn’t care about either of them. Maybe they weren’t sadists out to cause pain, but they did not give a single second of attention to the brothers. No double takes, no inclinations of their heads, not a word and not a damn to give. If it cost Ed his life, they wouldn’t even glance down to see the body— _he’s fine. What the hell is wrong with you? He’s fine._

Every other visit from the person in red had them mutely setting down two painkillers as well as the food. They waited patiently until Ed and Al both took the stupid things and as much as he hated to admit it, Al felt monumentally better afterwards.

They could very well be feeding them paralyzing agents or something to make them forget who they were, but there wasn’t anything Al could do when those who made a barricade at the door started to shove clips into their pistols uniformly, in unison and decisive.

They didn't care.

Ed and Al took what they were given and Al could confidently say he hated every second of it. That hate was still dwarfed by worry and fear.

“You could try alkahestry?” Ed suggested, picking weakly at their eighth round of rye bread and soft oranges. He twisted the peel between his fingers, still not having touched the actual food.

It was unnerving. Ed said he wasn’t hungry.

Little droplets of oil bled out from the peel.

Al shrugged weakly. “I haven’t learned enough about alhakestry to know what to do.”

The older boy frowned thoughtfully, one nail digging into the rind. More oil seeped out and dirtied his hands. “And that could rebound.”

Al hung his head. “Yeah…” He shoved a thin crust between his teeth and forced it down before the feeble creature that rested in his gut got too excited and started to wrench at his ribs again. It already was feeling ragged. Al didn’t want it to start up again because he was certain he’d be retching out his own battered heart if it did.

“What about alchemy?” Ed asked.

“Alchemy isn’t really medicinal centred, though. Besides that, they never actually said what it was they injected you with. I don’t want to mess up and have you—“

“Al, relax. I’m fine.” Ed smiled confidently. “We just have to wait it out for a while. We were supposed to meet with the Colonel ages ago, I’m sure they’ve noticed by now.”

He sighed. “I don’t get how you can be so sure about this.”

“Optimism.”

“You’re a _cynic_.” Al shot back.

Ed’s expression softened. “I’m _sure_ because those idiots are never late. They’d been showing up, guns a-blazin’ in an instant.”

* * *

Pike sat with her legs crossed, hunched forward, chin resting on her fist. Al wanted to kick her in the throat.

“Anything?” She asked.

Al sucked in air and swallowed down whatever laundry list of shouts he couldn’t afford to let loose. There was something welling up at the back of his throat that made each breath a little bit thicker, denser like it was a liquid rather than oxygen. He fixed his gaze downwards. “For the hundredth time, no.”

“Such a shame.” Her head swirled over to one of the beds where Ed lay. He was feverish, skin clammy and appetite dwindling. Al had been at his side for a long while, trying to coax the older into eating something only for Ed to struggle with keeping it down.

It had to have been a few days now. Even without the sun, time was passing and Ed wasn't getting better.

The muscles around his neck had stiffened and seized, spasming at random. Al saw them when they moved and could only hope that he was wrong in thinking it was meningitis. Ed was curled on his side in a fitful sleep.

Pike gazed at him with a soft hum, tone lilting around aimlessly like a lullaby so soothing it was deadly.

“Guess I underestimated how much you care about him.” She murmured. The nutcase had the nerve to sound upset and baffled, as though this wasn’t entirely her doing. Her lips fell into a troubled frown. “All you need to do it tell me those codes and this is all over. We could even get you to a city. Your brother could get all the treatment he would need and none of this would need to happen.”

“A hundred and one times.” Al hissed. “I don’t know the stupid codes.”

  
Pike turned back to Al, still wearing that concerned look that made his insides squirm and his blood race to drain out of his heels. “Oh, come now. I’ve heard all about the both of you.” She pointed at Al with a gentleness he wished wasn't there. He kept his mouth locked shut and tried to keep his face devoid of emotion.

It was way harder than he liked to think, because there had been years where expression was so far out of reach that he was suddenly channeling all of it into his skin, pooling in his eyes and spilling into the look on his face.

Pike continued, the point turning into a slow roll of her wrist, waving about. “Your brother was in the military for years, but he never bothered with any of that stuff. You were the rule follower. You were the one who wanted to be prepared and a little bird told me—“ She tapped the side of her head. Al suppressed a shudder. “—that you would go and memorize everything from top to bottom at night cause of insomnia or something. That would include...“

“Why do you even want them?”

Pike shrugged, her mouth twitching and trembling like she was readying to let loose a laugh. “Prank calls.”

“I’m telling you that I don’t know. I wouldn’t have waited this long to say something if I did.”

“I was just thinking the same thing, yet here we are, still _waiting_ for you to talk. I really was so sure you cared for your poor brother more than that.”

Al’s eye screwed shut, wincing at the words as they skewered him through the middle. It hurt worse than any bullet wound, any broken bones or torn off fingernails. Al was already starting to feel his chest grow tight, a band knotted just below his diaphragm and squeezing so that every time he caught sight of Ed it was yanked into a taut line.

He kept a plea from springing out and searched for Pike’s eyes. She didn’t have any, but watching her mouth as it sucked in hope and spat out barbed wire covered in roses was making gooseflesh bloom from the back of his neck all the way down to his wrists.

Al looked at her. “Please, just let us leave. I don’t have what you’re after.”

The woman's shoulders slumped. With a heavy exhale, she pushed herself to her feet, elegantly gliding across the hard floors like she had since Al first saw her.

“I would really like if you could think about this more carefully. You brother’s life isn’t worth those secrets.” Her head tipped down towards her chest and she sounded _so sincere_ that Al wanted to surge forward and knock her teeth down her throat. “I don’t want him to die for this, either. But you mustn’t be so stubborn.”

Al exploded. He couldn’t be calm or reserved anymore. He didn’t have the time to be deliberate or clever. He was just terrified and pissed because she wasn’t _listening_.

“Don’t you think I would have told you by now?!” He cried. “I wouldn’t risk his life over something this pointless. I don’t have what you want, but if I did I would have handed it over on the _first goddamn day!_ ”

She shook her head with a sigh. “Fine. I’ll give you more time to think it over.”

“Wait a second,”

She didn’t.

Al’s blood boiled and he shot too his feet. “Would you just listen to me?! I don—“ The door was wrenched shut with a high yelp of metal against metal. The locks all held hands and twisted into place. The chains were strung in thick bows across the whole thing.

His mouth curled, lungs faltering and the monster in his stomach squealed, digging into his entrails until he sank to his knees, staring at the door and wishing it would open again because maybe he could make some kind of bargain with her.

He _did_ have information on the military, just not what Pike was after. Al knew plenty of dirty secrets and classified information on enough topics to make an adult need to ruin their livers with a propensity for rooting out liquors that were supposed to be locked up.

He had mountains of things stored away that some people would surely kill for and he would give it all up in a heartbeat if it meant getting Ed some medical attention.

He missed the sun. He missed not having to wonder if Ed would wake up.

Al still didn’t know anything. All he could do was wait. It was the worst feeling he could possibly imagine and he was severely regretting not trying to pull out whatever was shutting down Ed’s body with alchemy before.

He might have been able to withstand the process a while ago before the fever hit like a speeding train and his teeth had started to chatter. If Al attempted anything now he was terrified he would just kill his brother.

Al’s hands were balled into fists before he realized what he was doing, feet moving and suddenly a loud clang rang out from the door he’d just punched. He’d been right.

His knuckles split.

Ow.

Al pulled back, flexing his fingers carefully and relieved to find that even with the ache ricocheting up to his elbow, they were intact and usable. There would be some bright bruises flowering over his fingers soon. Al sighed, his form deflating and all the tension that built up through his tedious and _startlingly_ one-sided conversation with Pike was washed away.

It was quite, save for the thrumming of blood in his ears, beating in a rhythm to match his stuttering heart, falling over itself like drummers in a line who never got the hang of it. His eyes were heavy and burning.

There was a headache fluttering around him, arms opened wide and ready to embrace him like a hurricane would embrace a row boat.

“Al?” A voice cut through the fog and frustration cleanly.

He turned to find Ed, a blanket around his still trembling shoulders, face flushed and sitting up. Al had probably woken him up with hitting the stupid damn door.

He opened his mouth to apologize, but Ed beat him to it. “I was already up.”

“Oh… how much did you catch?”

“Just that this lady should lay off on the idiot juice.”

Al breathed out a weak laugh. “No kidding.”

Ed gave his brother a lopsided smile. “C’mere for a sec. You probably busted your hand up.” He glanced back to the door for a long moment. His gaze lingered on the spot he’d taken a fist to. It hadn’t even made a dent.

When he looked back Ed still smiled with a patience that no one should ever had when they knew that they’re dying. Al could only try not to be reminded that all he’d gotten was a scratch from a spent bullet case.

The door didn’t open.

Ed didn’t get any better.

They kept waiting.

* * *

“It’s just because it’s cold in here.” Ed huffed, clutching the second blanket that had been donated from Al’s own humble bed. A shiver made him sink down into his cocoon. He was still plenty coherent, defiant against the sickness crawling through him, but it was getting to him all the same.

Al saw the way his muscles spasmed and his fingers curled tightly. They clawed at nothing and the persistent chill had yet to subside. Eating looked like it was a challenge.

“I bet there’s frost or something on the door.” Ed grumbled.

Al just nodded and let his brother complain, not letting it slip out that the room was as warm as could be.

* * *

He couldn’t sleep. Ed’s breathing quickened to the point of a thrum and Al couldn’t sleep listening to it.

Al couldn’t do anything. He was on the clock.

The door didn't open. He waited.

* * *

It had to have been a week by now.

Al tried to keep track of when he felt tired and when their simple little meals were brought down. It wasn’t the best measurement of time, considering that he’d been ruining his own sleep schedule to stay up with Ed as he fought off whatever symptoms he refused to share. Even so, even the most stingy of guesses said seven days had passed.

Instants came and went. They got worse and more hopeless with each reprise.

Mustang hadn’t shown up yet. No one had. There hadn’t been a single whisper of rescue. No hints from their captors or indicators from what little they could hear from beyond the walls.

They were still boxed in while Al slowly lost his mind and Ed slowly lost his _life_ — _he’s fine. Stop doing that. He’s fine._

But he wasn’t fine. No matter how much Ed insisted that he was feeling alright, saying he was okay, it was a lie. What made it worse was that he wasn’t even doing a good job of hiding it. Al knew his brother better than a raindrop knew the sky.

He caught every wince in his expression, all the twitches of muscles squirming under his skin that had relinquished their control to infection. The blisters on his arm were dense and gouged black. It looked like a crater, sloping into a shallow depression of dead, rotted skin.

Pike hadn’t been back since Al shouted at her and he was starting to get panicked. He spent too long pacing back and forth, reminding himself not to bite his own fingers off and chewing his cheek bloody.

It wasn’t helping anything. He knew _that_ if nothing else. It made the wound on his leg ache and protest with every stride, his head racing and weaving through impossible ideas like a bird through traffic until something struck him down. The speed kept ramping and Al’s hands twisted against each other, wringing themselves out until they started feeling raw.

“Stop that.” Ed snapped. “You’re going to drive yourself crazy.”

He hadn’t meant it as anything unkind. It was spoken in that normal, good-natured tone that was laced into Eds vocal chords. But Al was on edge and he was scared. His brother was dying and there wasn’t a thing he could do to stop it.

“What else am I supposed to do?!” He whirled, shoulders drawn up and voice rising. “Just—just _wait_ for you to—“ His lungs forced out a gasp because this was all happening so fast and only a little while ago they’d been on a train together, laughing and trading stories; they’d been sharing a box of candies that Ed had bargained for at a concession stand.

Now they were trapped.

And Ed was dying and the door hadn’t opened and _they were on the clock—_

“Al,” He started, hands unwinding from where they’d been curled into a blanket. He had this soft, sympathetic look that made Al’s heart turn itself inside out and dump its contents down the walls of his chest. It was like a murder had happened right between his spine and his sternum.

He glared. “No, you don’t get to do that.”

Ed took it in stride, waving off the words with one shaking, pale hand. Had it always been like that? No, certainly not. The blood was draining away. What a _phenomenal,_ god-awful realization to hit Al square in the chest right as his brother was trying to reassure him.

“Worrying isn’t going to do anything.” He said with that same crooked smile that came from one too many times of forgetting how to do it.

No amount of kindness or confidence would make the weary grin feel like anything less than a knife to the throat. He spat out a response before he choked on it. “It’ll make me feel better!”

“You look like you’re going to be sick, Al.” He pointed out.

Al pause for a half second and realized that yeah, his stomach was churning uncomfortably. The creature (he still couldn’t pinpoint what exactly it was) still dug through his interior, ripping up whatever it pleased and sleeping in the pit of his stomach, heavy like a rock and still shifting around to be sure Al’s own rest was rancid with static and unease.

He sighed and dropped down next to Ed, arms hanging at his sides and head bowed. “Right, I’ll just stop then. Like it’s easy.”

“It _is_ easy.” He could hear the tightness in Ed’s voice, trying to convince him of something that wasn’t true.

What remained of his anger faded, shrinking into something worse. All he felt was fear, head to toe and wrist to wrist. It lived behind his eyes and in his ears.

There was nothing he could do and the hand on his shoulder made his voice break. “It is _not_.” He said miserably. “It’s impossible. What if they’re not here soon? What if—?”

“Nah.”

Al looked up. Ed squeezed his arm. His fingers were cold as death, grip weaker than it should be while the rest of him had heat radiating outwards. Al shut his eyes and leaned into the touch. “How are you so calm? They _poisoned_ you”

“They won’t be late, Al. It’ll be alright.”

His head hurt. His heart hurt. “You’re not even _scared_.”

Ed snorted. “Why would I be? The clown brigade will crash through soon and I’ll get to say I told you so.”

“You don’t know that.”

He laughed. Ed _laughed_. “Sure I do.”

“I just want all this to be over.” Al whispered back.

“You and me both. The food is getting old.”

“That’s your complaint?” He asked incredulously, dumbfounded at the absurdity of it. “The _food_?”

He felt Ed nod. It was careful and stiff. “Absolutely. It’s bland as fuck.”

* * *

Al stayed beside his brother until he fell asleep, slumped over, his breathing too fast and skin burning. Al stayed, checking his pulse every now and again just to be sure his heart hadn’t given up without warning. Al stayed there, staring at the ceiling and walls and he tried not to cry.

He did that for as long as he could, asking Ed if he needed anything through the thickness in his voice when his brother’s eyes cracked open and were glassy like a lifeless dolls.

Ed asked for water and then threw it up ten minutes later.

He tried again and it didn’t work. Al dragged blankets into the washroom and kept on trying to keep his emotions in check. He forced back the stoney feeling that wreathed his eyelids furiously because Ed was okay. He was here.

All they had to do was wait. 

The sun wasn't going anywhere.

Ed told him stories to pass the time, strong-arming his way through the headaches that kept his eyes firmly shut and the nausea that nearly plowed him over. “You know you had your own room when you were little.”

Al’s nose wrinkled. “I did?”

“Yeah. We didn’t share one at first. Mom had you with her for a while and left the door open at night in case I got scared or something. Then she put us together."

“Huh. That’s weird. I didn’t remember.”

Ed chuckled. It turned into a cough. Al was on his feet and filling up their only cup with water. Ed’s hand shook as he took it, but he smiled gratefully. “I’m guessing you don’t remember why either.”

“Can’t say I do.”Al shook his head.

“You used to crawl into my room.”

Ed sipped cautiously at his drink and swallowed it with a grimace. “I think you had bad night terrors when you were really little.”

“Wonder why.”

“I dunno. But you would have to knock on the door cause you couldn’t reach the knob yet and pass out right there next to me. We’d get in trouble for it in the mornings. Mom always thought _I_ was the one waking you up in the night, but I never snitched on you.”

Al raised an eyebrow and did his best to ignore the rattling sound that accompanied Ed’s breathing. It started up a little while ago and wasn’t showing any signs of going away. He fiddled with the seams of his sleeve and cast a sidelong glance to the older boy. “Why didn’t you just take me back when I woke you up?” Al winced—he had been aiming for teasing but it fell out as more of a morbid murmur.

“You said there were monsters after you.”

Al waited for an elaboration, but none came. “And?” He prompted.

“ _And_ I didn’t want them to get me too.” Ed replied, as though that were the most obvious thing in the world. “If there’s a monster in the hallway, you think I’m going to go back out there with you? _God_ no. We stayed in my room where it was safe.”

Al laughed for an _instant_. And in that instant he felt guilty for having the nerve to laugh, but Ed wasn’t mad. Far from it, he was snickering into his hand because of how silly it all was in hindsight.

They hid from monsters together as children and now they’d been caught by them.

Irony was a wicked thing, wasn’t it. For an instant, it really was okay, but that’s exactly how long it lasted for.

No sooner had they squeezed out the last bit of comedy from their childhood than Ed went rigid. His palms flattened against the ground and his eyes went wide.

The water came back with a heave into the sink and Ed’s legs were buckling underneath him. Al caught his brother before he hit the ground and the instant was blown away.

Things weren’t okay anymore.

Al hooked his arm around Ed’s middle and helped him rediscover the floor a little more gently.

He passed out within the next ten minutes. Not that Al really could tell the time for certain, but it was a reasonable assumption.

He stayed there, watching the uneven rise and fall of his brother’s chest, feeling useless beyond measure, and still not knowing.

He missed the sun.


	2. and before I realize I don't have the heart to tell him, I tell him, "Not latley"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Implied panic attack and disassociation.

Al woke up without ever having intended to fall asleep, curled up against Ed, still sprawled on the washroom floor after nausea had given the older boy a rather merciless beating.

Al blinked blearily, scanning the room and scrubbing the fuzzy afterimages from his sight. His gaze halted on his brother and Al’s throat sealed shut.

For a long moment—too long—he just sat there, too scared to move. It was _so_ still.

“Brother?”

He reached for Ed’s hand and it was cold. It was _cold_.

Al couldn’t even register anything else except for that one thing. He was cold.

 _No_.

 _No, no, no._ _Not yet._

They’re not supposed to be late.

Al’s heart started to beat in tune with his own horror, thrashing in what was left of his chest. His lips parted but only a small, choked sound came out. He gripped Ed’s hand hard enough to bruise. “Brother?”

Not a twitch. Not a shift, hum, or sputter.

Panic floored him. Everything started to spin as he grabbed his brother by the shoulder and shook. “Ed!”

* * *

His eyes opened. Relief made his head swim. Ed hugged him for what felt like a century.

Al was shaking so hard he thought he’d fall apart, right there on the floor of their cell with his eyes watery and voice rough from riding out the heavy cries that racketed him relentlessly.

“You weren’t waking up.” The words tumbled out in an incoherent babble, streaming and colliding with one another because neither they nor he gave a shit about seeming composed. He wasn’t.

He was falling apart from the outside in, collapsing and here Ed was, holding him together after he’d been walking up to ring deaths doorbell.

Here he was, pushing down the tremors that Al knew were still there so he could give his little brother some modicum of comfort. How _kind_ of him

And how _selfish_ of Al.

“Your hand was too— _you_ were too cold.” He couldn’t stop them, even as guilt screamed at him to shut up because _Ed_ was the one who was sick. Still, he shuddered and suffocated on every inhale. “You weren’t waking up.” His voice cracked.

“I’m okay.”

“I thought—“

“I’m okay.” He said again with more force behind it than he should be wasting.

Al buried his face in Ed’s shoulder and breathed through whatever was clogging his mouth and making everything taste sour. All he could smell was the cloying stickiness of a fever and salt running from his own eyes.

He was lightheaded from the fear and the monster in his stomach was not letting up. It scratched and screamed until his bones were vibrating underneath his muscles and Ed was the one keeping him together. It was backwards.

It had been only an instant. Ed took just a little too long to open his eyes.

An _instant_.

It broke him into pieces and no amount of alchemy was going to fix this. He couldn’t clap his hands and seal up the part of him he could feel being pulled away and he couldn’t clean Ed’s blood of whatever was poisoning it because he _didn’t_ _know how_.

No logic could slow down time as it passed, even if they didn’t know how fast it was going.

“Sorry for worrying you.” Ed muttered.

He held on a little tighter and decided that he believed in miracles.

He decided that he believed in miracles because that’s exactly what he he needed now. The hypocrisy stared him in the face but who cares about bending your own understanding of the world if it meant saving the most important person?

Not Al. He didn't care. He'd throw away logic in a heartbeat.

"Sorry." Ed said again.

Al didn’t have it in him to say _it’s alright_. Lying took more stamina than the truth, as it so happens, but truth takes way more strength. They weren’t one and the same. Stamina was running a marathon on hot coals and strength was taking the last step over the finished line.

“Don’t do that again.”

“I won’t.”

“Swear it.” Al demanded. Like a child.

Ed hummed. “I swear I won’t.”

Slowly, he pulled back, swiping at his eyes with back of his hand furiously, trying in vain to get rid of the rings of red. He sucked in a low, clipped breath. “Where are they?”

“They’ll be here soon. That stupid Colonel isn’t going to start being late to things now.”

* * *

The door opened, but Pike didn’t come back. Ed didn’t get better. He tried convincing his brother to eat, but nothing worked because it all just made Ed miserable and pained.

Al was getting desperate and frenzied. They didn’t sleep how people were supposed to. It was a cycle of his older brother looking like he was about to give in before the light returned to his eyes and he spat out a victory.

“Fucker’s are gonna have to do better then that.” He sipped on water even though most times it didn’t settle in his stomach right. Al did everything he could to help make his brother comfortable and kept hope in his back pocket. He did everything he could not to come undone.

Al failed at that last one.

“What if they’re not here?” Al asked that question too many times but here he was saying it again.

“Pfft, they will.”

“It could… it could happen.” He said quietly.

Ed gave him a look, one eyebrow raised against his rapidly paling skin. “I dare you to name one time they were late to something.” Al opened his mouth but nothing came out. Ed snickered. It turned into a choked sound. “Exactly. You can’t think of any.”

They spent the majority of that particular line up of instances in the washroom until Ed managed to fall asleep, slumped against the wall.

Whenever he woke up Al would have to pretend not to be tired after watching Ed fall apart from the inside out, riding out fit after fit. Al just stood by, hoping he would be alright and that this, right here and now, wouldn’t be the end of it.

He started to wish for things.

He’d never done it before and still didn’t believe in anything looking down from above other than stars and maybe the odd meteor. Al did it as a distraction and it didn’t even work very well.

Wishes and miracles were all he had.

Ed fell into a deathly still sleep after he was up because even talking was a chore and Al was on the verge of collapse as he gave up what little he had left of his pride for the sake of keeping his brother alive. That was the only thing he’d salvaged from this wreck but _god_ he didn’t need it.

The person in red reappeared and Al threw it down _instantly_.

“ _Please_.” His voice split down the middle. “ _Please_ , I swear I don’t know, just let us leave. I need to—I _need_ to get him to a hospital or he’ll die.”

The person set down the food, not even having the grace to make eye contact as he pleaded. _Eye contact._ They didn’t even _have_ eyes.

Al felt his face burn. “My brother is going to die. I... I can’t do this again. I can’t bury him.“

They stood to leave.

Al lunged forward and grabbed the person with the red slash by the wrist. “You have to let us go.” He said. “I swear on everything I don’t know the codes. Just let us go. I won’t say a word to anyone about this.”

The person paused, waiting for him to loosen his hold but he wasn’t going to. He couldn’t. If his hands had to become shackles, then so be it.

Ed wasn’t asleep but he wasn’t awake either. If he didn’t get out of here soon it would be all over far too fast. He held on to their hand and felt their pulse as it spiked. “I swear I won’t tell anyone.”

The monster in his stomach wailed at him and dove through his organs, latching onto his heart and pulling at it. He was certain a string would snap. Al _pleaded_. “I don’t know what else to do.”

Every intake was faster than the last and he couldn’t hope to bring it back down to a normal pace.

He didn’t know anything. Ed was dying for it.

Al’s nails dug into their arm and he searched and scrounged for any empathy or pathos, any hint that these people were humans under the masks. “I don’t know what to do.”

They jerked their hand away and left the room without a word.

Helplessness wasn’t a big enough word to do justice to his horror. Despair and anguish were trivial trinkets. It was as though he was drowning, dread and panic robbing him of every inch of logic, leaving desperation in it’s place.

It dragged him down and the pressure was unbearable.

He started at it. The door stared back. Like the person with the slash and all the other masks, it said nothing. His lungs weren’t doing their job right. The air was pooling under his tongue instead of going down his windpipe and his head was pounding.

Anger flared a instant (everything came instantly now; there was no other way to know the day or hour or month) and he felt the electricity surging through him before his hands even met. The door didn’t budge under his touch.

He thought it was iron.

“Al?"

He tried again. It still refused to shift.

“Al, stop it."

It wasn’t working. The palms of his hands stung.

“Al!”

He threw his fist into the door a second time with a shout. He’d been right.

His knuckles split.

Al sank down against the stupid slab of metal, sliding until he hit the floor. There were slow, cautious footsteps, padding across the room. Ed all but fell when he knelt in front of the younger boy. “It’ll be fine. We just need to—“

“ _Wait_.” He hissed the word like the venomous curse that it was. They had to wait. He knew. That was the _only_ thing he knew. They had to just wait because these people were all armed and clearly had no qualms about taking a life.

Ed’s hand covered his own. Al didn’t look up. “I know you’re scared.”

How ill-fitting it sounded. _Scared_ was what they felt when there were imaginary monsters lurking around the corners of their house. Al didn’t even know what this was.

He didn’t know.

After years of being so on top of information, so practiced in knowledge, he was clueless.

“We just have to wait it out a little longer. Then we can go home and, hell, I don’t know. We’ll get to sit outside in the rain and have ten foot windows.” Ed told him.

Al’s shoulders were unsteady, hands flinching at his brother’s light touch. “I wish it was me.” He said between breaths. “I wish it was me.”

It was quiet. He could feel the shock rolling off Ed in droves and Al just wished this wasn’t happening. It felt so dream-like and hazy. Maybe it wasn’t happening.

“Don’t _say that._ ” Ed snapped. “Don’t even think it.”

“But it’s true.”

“Al—“

“It’s true.” He spat.

Ed inhaled. His lungs didn’t seem to want to cooperate. “I lost you twice. _Twice_ , Al. I wouldn’t be able to do that a third time.”

* * *

He estimated it had been two weeks.

Maybe two and a half. Still no sign of the military. Every time the masks came to give food or medication, Al pleaded with them. He tried over and over, discarding dignity so he could strike a deal.

They didn’t hear a word Al said.

Ed couldn’t even stand on his own anymore. He was dizzy and overrun by vertigo merely from sitting up. The fever was ever present and slowly taking away Ed’s coherency. He knew what was happening, where they were, but he always seemed to be opening his eyes with more hope than Al had.

“They here yet?” He mumbled.

“Not yet.”

“Lazy asses…”

He didn’t sleep so much as he did fall unconscious for hours at a time. It scared Al because for each reprise it was taking longer for him to wake back up. His heart was slowing down and speeding up. At times his breathing was so close to hyperventilation that Al had to wake him up and coach his inhales back to something resembling normal. Others they were delayed and sluggish.

His body was being worn down. He couldn’t lift himself past what it took to cough out whatever food he’d managed to swallow into a drain. Any higher and he’d been getting his own special form of altitude sickness.

Al was out of ideas, out of options and rapidly running out of time. He watched the door like it was a time bomb and scrambled from his spot on the floor next to his wilting brother when the hinges cried out.

In any other version of this situation, he’d be angry; rage filled and inconsolably pissed.

He would have spat curses so colourful a sailor would blush bright pink, throw his elbow into as many noses as he could reach and snap at anyone who came within a foot of him or his brother.

He still _was_ angry, but desperation was far bigger and deeper. Anger was a pool and desperation was the hose that fed it, leading to a lake or maybe an ocean. Al couldn’t find the bottom, but he did find himself on his knees.

“Please.” Al said the word so many times it started to feel like a movement of phonetics and vaguely humanoid sounds that was wrapped around his mouth rather than a word. “Please don’t make him die for this. I swear—“ He started doing that a lot. “—that I don’t know the codes that you’re after.”

The person with the slash across their face froze in the doorway. Al held his breath and for a moment he dared to have hope. They turned.

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

It was the first thing they’d said and they were gone before he could process it.

* * *

Al missed the sun.

Ed told him stories about the things they did when they were younger. Al didn’t have any memory of it, so he soaked all of the tales up like a sponge, viciously holding on to every word because he may never get to hear these again.

At one point the anecdotes circled back to monsters.

Al when he went sneaking into Ed’s room every time something frightened him and the two huddling under a castle built up of sheets and pillows. It was made out of soft things but it was their fortress; their battle ground to fend off demons and ghosts.

When they were little the blankets and mats turned into mighty towers made of stone and stuffed animals were ammunition to be lobbed at the enemy like little kid-friendly grenades.

The sunrise was their trump card. It could scare off anything bad with only a wink. Their second in command was the light switch at the far end of the room.

Ed’s voice went low and gravelly from the stomach acid burning at it, but lit up a little when he walked Al through their battle plans. Whether there were things hiding out in the halls or if they’d managed to breech that barrier and crawl into the closet, stowed away under a dresser.

“—and you’drun over and say _I swear to god you bastards I’ll turn on the lights_.”

Al managed to laugh. “I don’t think I knew the word _bastard_ at age three.”

“Well you also don’t remember any of this, so whose to say.”

“Me. I’m to say.”

Ed waved with a dry scoff. “Creative liberties aren’t a crime and I’m the one telling the story.”

The memories slowly ground to a halt as more meals were delivered and Ed had a harder time keeping his head all the way up. His spine kept bending forward because that was the best way to stave off nausea until it forced him back towards their little washroom.

Ed was still trying so hard to smile. Al didn’t know which one of their sakes it was for. He smiled with the confidence of someone who knew where they’d be in five years and enough gas in the tank to get them there with miles to spare.

He smiled like the sun was challenging him to a contest in brightness and instead of backing down he shouted back, in true Ed fashion, _bring that shit_.

Al couldn’t do it. Because instant leaped to instant and they never improved, only deteriorated.

His brother was dying.

There were monsters in the hall and under the beds but there was no light switch to threaten them with and a sunrise was out of the question.

They’d been put into someone else’s fortress and this time it wasn’t made of plush thing that were safe for children to toss around. It was brick walls and one door on the far end.

* * *

Finally, she was back. After days with nothing to do but try to reason with people who didn’t care and try to keep Ed from falling to the wayside, she was back.

Al was pathetically relived that Pike hadn’t just decided to let them rot away forever.

He almost laughed at the same time—instant, it was only an instant—he was internally kicking himself. She had done all this in the first place. She put weapons to their heads and a needle in Ed’s arm.

She took them from the world and left them in this time capsule.

Yet he was relived because this was his chance to get the out of here. He could make some kind of deal with her and Ed would be alright. Who cares if it’s treason or if it earns him a million lifetimes in prison. Ed would alway be worth ten times that.

She strolled in like she had never left. Al untangled himself from his brother, whose head had been pillowed on Al’s lap. It was easier to know if he was alright if Al could feel it.

Plus, Ed’s hair was long.

It was calming to play with it, brushing it back so it wasn’t too sweat soaked and leaving little crowns of terribly messy braids along his scalp in scrambled patterns. Al had never learned how to braid, but he had resolved to figure it out.

He walked over with his head held high, face muted and determined. Pike looked him up and down with a slight smirk.

“Have you got an answer for me?”

He steeled himself. “I still don’t know those codes. I never did.”

The expression fell into a frown. Al made sure to keep his hands from fidgeting and his eyes from wandering over his shoulder to where Ed was curled in on himself.

“I thought you would have gotten it by now.” Pike jerked her head towards Ed. “Isn’t he worth more than that.”

“Of course he is.” Al hissed through his teeth. It took everything not to deck her through then and there, but he had to do this right.

He had his hand and she had hers. The odds were stacked up so high against him Al couldn’t see the top, but there was a chance he could do this.

However slim and shaky, there was still a chance so he’d cling to it with everything he had. Al stared straight ahead at the women who held Ed’s life in her hand like it was a toy. “But that doesn’t change that I don’t have what you’re after.”

“Pity.”

“I know plenty about the military, though.” Carefully, don’t oversell it. Don’t underestimate anything. “I can give you plenty of dirt on them if that’s what you’re after.”

Her head tilted in consideration. “Really now?”

“Yes. You said it yourself: I was around them for years and I was the one who knew the ins and outs better. I’ve been to Eastern and Central Command loads of times. Even went up to Fort Briggs a few years ago.”

Pike gave a curt nod. “And you didn’t freeze to death, I see.”

Something was knocking on his chest. _Tap tap tap_ , it went, impatiently waiting for the results of this gamble. The hopelessness had been so all encompassing that even the brief consideration from this iron skin suit of a woman was enough to make something light up in him.

The creature—wherever it had hurried off too—shrunk and withered. He could do this.

_He could do this._

Al stored confidence in his throat and spoke it aloud. “I know how things work there and I know things they don’t want civilians to know.”

Pike’s head rolled, shoulders lifting and pulling back. They popped and Al didn’t flinch as she took a step towards him with a gesture for him to continue.

He beat back the spike of fear that came with her proximity and told the burning bullet wound on his leg to shut up. “They never told the public the truth about what happened Führer Bradley.” The name was hard not to let sound bitter, but Al pushed through it anyways.

“There were coverups all throughout Amestris’ history and I could give you the layouts of command centres.”

Her face didn’t change.

 _Tap tap tap. Hurry, you’re on the clock_.

_Ed’s on the clock._

“And…” The words didn’t want to leave him.

Her arms crossed over her chest, heel archived off the ground only to thump back down impatiently. “I haven’t got all day.”

“And I can show you all the weak points to get in. Undetected.” It was betrayal. He knew that and it hurt him lay out each offer but they were the only chips he had. It was selfish and traitorous but he couldn’t do it all over again. He couldn’t lose his family.

Not now.

Not after everything.

_Not Ed._

Pike turned on her heel. “Not what I asked for, kid.” She started for the door and the _thing_ was back, scratching ribbons into his heart. Al blinked and then started after her.

“ _Wait!”_ He reached, one hand latching onto her shoulder. _“_ Wait, okay. Just hold on.”

She yanked herself away from him in a swift, sharp motion. “I’ve got places to be.”

“Please, I don’t have anything else.”

“Then why should I wait?” The women asked, her voice high with incredulousness and lips turned into a thin, apologetic smile. “You said it just now: you’ve got nothing and I have better things to do.”

“But I—I _can’t_.” His confidence faded and his voice wavered. “Please don’t make me watch him die. He’s my brother.”

“You’re wasting my time.” Pike replied cooly, not an inch given. She had no other emotions to cover up, the apathy and pity was painted across her sleeve plain as her smile. The teeth around the mask grew from a haunting image to a promise of something worse than being trapped.

Pike’s footsteps were deafening but… but Al still had something to use. It was only one piece, but it was his most powerful so maybe it would work. No, not maybe. It _would_.

It had to.

He grit his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut. “Human transmutation.”

The footsteps halted right as her hand went to rest on the door. Pike eyed him from over her shoulder. “Pardon?”

“Human transmutation.” He said again. Al felt a sense of dirtiness pour over him. He flinched against it, but opened his mouth and continued. “I can do it. I know how it works because I’ve done it before and I can tell you everything about it.”

“Hum.”

He raised his head and wished that she had eyes he could see for the hundredth time. Something other than two jaws that were frightening and inhuman. Maybe she wasn’t a human.

It wouldn’t matter if she was or wasn’t. Ed was dying because he was human. And this was the last little instant he had to try and change that.

Al choked out the words as best as he could while his eyes blurred and his hands quivered at his sides. “He’s all I have. I can’t lose him too. Please I—I really don’t know. Just don’t _take him_ from me.”

“I’m sorry.” The sincerity was what made him simply break. Dread and hate and despair swallowed him whole.

Al stumbled forward, his speech slightly tinted with a stutter and a slur. “No, no, no, _you can’t_.”

“I’m not interested in alchemy.”

“He’ll die.” Al breathed.

The door opened. She didn’t look to him as she stepped through. “I’ll be back tomorrow. We can try again.”

“Please don’t—“

The locks held hands and the chains echoed. Al reached it a moment (an instant) too late.

“—do this.”

* * *

  
Al wondered if this is how it was when they were kids, tucked away in Ed’s room and staying away from the demons that crept about their house.

He’d been smaller back then. Small enough that even Ed as a toddler would have been able to hold him and protect him from whatever was coming to hurt them.

He wondered when their places had been switched.

Because now Ed seemed much smaller and Al was the one holding him while he tried to fill his lungs, in and out despite the fact that the simple act of breathing looked impossible. It was a challenge each time and just having to watch it was like being run through with hot iron and lead. Al couldn't even image how Ed felt.

There was nothing he could do.

Al would have preferred the monster to this. They'd been imaginary all along but this was real. He carefully combed back Ed’s hair with his free hand. It had fallen out of its tie forever ago, dirty from sweat and tangled. He slowly worked out the knots and tried to weave it into a braid.

But Al never learned how to.

He should’ve asked how. He should’ve asked a lot of things. Ed blinked through the fogginess of exhaustion and the sickness pulling him down, his eyes sliding across the room without purpose or a target.

His skin was too hot, body too still and eyes too glassy.

They were huddle against a wall on the floor because sitting on a bed soaked up the heat and spat it back out at them and Al hoped that some miracle or wish would let the chilled stone might break the fever.

In all the other harrowing, unfair circumstances they'd lived through, there was always some silver lining or ace in the hole. There was a chance to make it right and things ended okay, if imperfect.

Al wondered if this is how it felt to be so sure things wouldn’t turn out how he wanted them to.

How he _needed_ them to, and _god_ did he need this to turn out okay.

All he could do was be there with his brother and pray to any force that deigned to give him their attention.

_Please don’t let him die._

_Just this once, listen to me. Don’t let him die._

There came no answer to his pleas. He swallowed down tears and repeated it as many times as his mind would allow, mouthing along to the words until they started to crash into one another and his whisper broke into a quiet gasp.

He wondered what the sky looked like now.

He wondered if they’d get to see it. If Ed would get to see it. There was nothing he could do but wait and Al hated it viscerally.

Ed’s face was bloodless, chest heaving and lips cracked. His eyes squeezed shut and his hand twitched. When they opened, there was so much clarity. It was so striking and vivid that the sight knocked the wind out of Al.

They were ringed with sleeplessness and every blink was heavy, but they were bright and Ed was there. He was all there for an instant. “A-Al,”

Ed's fingers curled a little.

Al didn’t trust himself to reply. The remains of his heart were stuffed up into his mouth and if he opened to speak, it would spill out like its own personal bloodbath. Al nodded and smiled down at the older boy.

Ed’s hand twitched again, his wrist lifting up with whatever strength had had left. It was dwindling.

He only managed to raise it up about two inches before his muscles gave out. Al grabbed his hand before it fell and squeezed. There was a slight pressure, and with a start he realized that was Ed returning the gesture.

His smile shook, but the vibrancy to his gaze was unbendable. “Al I… don’t think they’re gonna be here on time.”

“They will.” His heart fell right out of his mouth and onto his sleeve. “They’ll be here.” Al refused to let it end. It couldn’t. Not here and now. Not like this.

There would be some last minute rescue and Ed would be rushed to a hospital. Maybe they cut it far too close and Al would chew them out for it later, but Ed would be alright and they’d have a house with ten foot windows and sit outside in the rain.

They would never have to guess the time or try to reason with the monsters in the halls. _Those idiots are never late. They’d been showing up, guns a-blazin’ in an instant._

Ed wasn’t shivering anymore. He’d lost the energy for it, so Al had taken up the responsibility. He was shivering for an entirely different reason, though. “They’re gonna be a little l-late.” Ed muttered.

“No they won’t. They never have been and won’t start now.”

“I’m sorry. I—I can’t. Al I don’t think I…” His smile melted right off his face. Because dying people don’t usually do that very much. Al shook his head and held onto his only family member like he was a lifeline, grasping his hand and ducking his head down.

It was too fast and too sudden. This wasn’t what was meant to happen because they’d _done it_. They _won_.

Years ago they’d earn their rest and an unequalled right to the rest of their lives but Ed was slipping off. He couldn’t stop it. Al was helpless, huddled on the floor pleading and terrified.

A strangled sound forced its way out of his mouth. He couldn’t stop this from happening. All either of them could do was wait and it was crushingly _real_. Al forced himself to breathe.

Then he started to talk.

He made promise after promise, assurance after assurance. He told so many lies his head was pounding from the gravity of it all and his chest was being crushed inward by the weight. He kept taking in air, never letting go of Ed’s hand and never taking his eyes off his brother.

Al repeated all the things Ed had been telling him this whole time. That it was okay; that they just had to wait; that they’d be here soon; that Ed was fine and it would be alright. He said it and he meant it because any other version of this wasn’t real.

It couldn’t be real.

He spoke until he ran out of air. Then he felt a tug on his hand.

Ed’s eyes were clear and watery. His frame shuddered as he forced down a deep breath and put everything he had into gripping Al’s hand back.

It was light. His expression crumpled into something tiny and terrified and Al felt sick.

“I don’t want to die.” He choked. “Al I—“

“You won’t.” He snarled back, tone shaking because _god_ this couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t be happening because they’d done it. They got to the finished line and this wasn’t fair. He couldn’t feel anything other than the slow pulse under his hand.

As far as the wishes may go, past the atmosphere and into the sky, there’s not alway gonna be a reply and maybe there’s just not enough miracles to go around. Maybe he didn’t start believing in them soon enough. Maybe it was because there was a whole lot of people making wishes and that a lot of pressure for one star.

It could just fall, couldn’t it.

Al was so scared.

There was no sunrise. Not this time.

Ed looked to him desperately, silently asking him to _please don’t let me die here_ and Al just—

—broke.

He thought he could do it and he failed. He can’t do this. Al broke and his exhale was miserably soft. Ed’s eyelids were trying to drag themselves down, but he was fighting against it anyways.

They were still so bright. Ed was right there and he wasn’t going anywhere. Not yet. Not yet because Al still didn’t know how to do a braid and he didn’t get to hear all the stories from when they fought monsters.

He missed the sun.

Ed let out a strangled gasp of a sound, trying to squeeze Al’s hand but there wasn’t any strength in him. The realization floored Al and his head was spinning madly.

He was holding his brother. His brother was dying. Al wanted to wake up from this.

“I-I’m not ready to...”

Al felt him shudder. “Ed _please—_ “

“I’m not ready. I don’t want to.” Ed’s thin rasp turned to something even more impossibly shallow and desperate.

This wasn’t real.

It was a dream or a night terror, like he used to have when he was little. He’d wake up and crawl into his big brother’s bed and they’d get in trouble for it later _this couldn’t be happening—_

Ed’s voice was weary and ragged. “I’m really scared, Brother.” He said, the words strangled and low. Al didn’t trust his voice to say anything. Ed swallowed.

“I’m scared.”

Al held his brother and didn’t let go. Time slipped and skidded away but he stayed there, listening to in fragile sound of his brother drinking in the air, feeling the fading beat in his wrist. Nothing else mattered.

It couldn’t happen. Al could hope hard enough and it would be equivalent to a life. He could make reality freeze in place so that this didn’t have to drag on. Time was being ripped from both of them so it’s only fair that he could rewind it afterwards, right? That was equal.

But… but it happened.

It happened in an instant. Ed’s hand loosened. His eyes unfocused.

And Al knew it instantly.

Al felt it and the sky fell on top of him. There was nothing and Al _felt it_. He heard the last exhale and the thready thumping that staggered to a stop.

_He knew._

And yet he was at a loss, still sitting there with his brother, hand in hand, hoping his heart might restart on it’s own and Al wondered…

He wondered what he did wrong.

When this would finally be over. When he could just cry until his insides were empty and the sky stopped falling. When Ed’s skin had gotten so frigid and dull.

When his ears had started to ring and when he’d get to wake up and go find his brother.

* * *

They came less than three hours later.

And Al knew the because he could tell time in the worst way possible. A body doesn’t just exist all on it’s own, so when the battery leaves it goes stiff. Ed wasn’t there when Al heart gunshots echoing outside and the sound of voices crying out.

Cold.

He was cold.

There were people outside the door, talking to one another in a frenzied melody and Al couldn’t really tell what they were saying. He hadn’t let go yet.

Ed’s hand was cold in his but that was fine. He wasn’t going to let go. He couldn’t.

The hinges groaned as the people on the other side tried to pry it open and the voices became clearer. He recognized them in an instant. Things were _instants_ now. And instantly, Al hugged his brother closer, clutching him, and kept his head low.

It was Mustang and Hawkeye and all the rest. They were here.

They were late.

Either the room was shaking or he was. They were equally likely. He heard more footsteps, heavy and without hesitation, rushing through the corridors. The door was stubborn and metal screeched against metal until finally there was a resounding clap, chased down by a crackle of energy.

Al heard it flew open with a clang, followed by a sharp inhale. “Alphonse!” Hawkeye sounded relived.

They rushed to him and Al heard the Colonel’s voice too, alarmed and out of character. “What happened? Are either of you hurt?”

“You’ll be out soon, we’re just doing a sweep of the building.” Hawkeye added. Al’s attention was still squarely on keeping hold of his brother, a limp hand gripped between his palm and fingers.

A gloved hand brushed against his shoulder and Al—

— _snarled_.

He recoiled, head flying up to find the two officers in from of him while more flooded past the door. A vicious sense of protectiveness tore through Al as he pressed himself against the wall.

Mustang pulled away, confused, his brow creased with Hawkeye hovering close by. Al just glowered at him with everything he had. He shielded Ed as much as he could from them both and stared through all the blurriness and ripples.

“Are you hurt?” He asked again, slower and more carefully, hands out in the open in a peaceful way. Like he was talking to a kid.

A kid.

_Just like when they were—_

Mustang exchanged a glance with Hawkeye. She took a tentative step forward and crouched down in front of him. “Al?”

“Don’t.” He hissed, breath hitching. “Don’t touch him.”

“Wha—“ Mustang tensed up. “Why not? _What’s wrong?_ ”

“Just don’t _touch_ him.” Al growled again.

Their expressions became more troubled and baffled. He wished that he could say he was angry, but it was just desperation. He'd run out of wishes. Al blinked the glassiness away harshly. “Where _were_ you?” He demanded.

His voice split on the way out. It sounded pretty broken, even to his own ears.

Mustang froze up, his eyes widening as they darted between Al and—and the _body_ he was holding. His face fell into something disbelieving and Al could see the realization drop down, physically, and it nearly knocked the older man to the floor because Mustang actually _swayed_.

“Al,” he started, “what happened? What happened to Fullme—“

“Where the _hell_ were you?” He cut the older alchemist off with—fucking hell it wasn’t real—a tear-filled glare. “We kept _waiting_ ,”

Hawkeye blinked and without warning it hit her as well, back suddenly ramrod straight and a hand flying to her mouth. Al didn’t let go even as Ed’s hand started to slip from his.

They both looked at his brother. At the skin that was far too pale and fingers tinted blue. At the uneven braid that Al had spun together even though he didn’t know how.

And at his chest that wasn’t moving.

Hawkeye dropped down to her knees. Mustang looked as though he might faint or be sick. He reached forward once more and this time, Al let him. His grasp on Ed loosened by a little. It couldn’t be real.

Mustang touched his wrist and jerked back like he’d been burned.

Which was ridiculous.

Ed was cold.

* * *

They had to pull him away.

Al just wanted to wake up. He even didn’t know he could cry while asleep. It wasn't real. 

It felt too terrible and gut wrenching and just— _no_.

He wasn’t asleep and it was real. So he fought against them all and someone tried to coax him into a calm state. He refused.

So they had to pull him away.

Al missed the sun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ....my apolocheese.   
> You're free to yell at me for this.


	3. so I just lay there waiting for him to hate me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Disassociation. Implied panic attack. Grief.

It was the first time he had seen the sun in weeks and it was beautiful.

He’d been longing for this and it was so much more than he remembered, but Al wanted to scream.It was beautiful and Ed would never get to see it. He would have wanted to see it.

Right? Wouldn’t he?

Al didn’t know. Maybe Ed would have preferred a downpour to suit their release after all the time spent using a tap for water.

_They could sit in the rain._

His bother often had a bone to pick with the rain because it made his port sore and brought on migraines when thunder rolled out. But when they were kids Ed liked it a lot more.

There were puddles to kick through and mud to throw.

If there was rain no one would have chastised Ed for the joyous whoop he certainly would have let loose. No one could tell him to quiet down or sit still because water was like a smoke screen.

He would have said _I told you so_. Smiled, maybe.

But no, the sun was beating across the earth without remorse. It shouldn’t look like this. It shouldn’t be bright and ignorant.

Al wished it was raining. No one would know what he was thinking if it were raining because it would always wash that shit away. Right off his face and into the gutter. Rain was an equalizer and it could keep him hidden.

From monsters or whatever. Ed couldn’t do that anymore.

It was sunny and beautiful. His brother was escorted out of their prison in a bag and Al was given a front seat in a nice car with a carton of sweetened cider and so many sympathetic looks from strangers he was motion sick before the engine even started.

Ed was cold and Al was tucked away in a heated vehicle.

He didn’t want to be here. He’d rather be in the back of the ambulance, holding his brother’s hand because he never should have let it go.

Al heard a medic as someone had hugged him to their chest while they separated him from the last person his had to hang on to.

He heard them say: “If there was anything else we could do for him, we’d do it.”

Then the sound of a zipper cut across his ears.

He’s not coming back.

So he was here, in a car with cider and tear tracks staining his face. He didn’t dare open the drink. It surely would have spilled.

He could see Hawkeye’s knuckles turning white from gripping the steering wheel and heard heard the shocked, breathless sobs that came from Fuery. Havoc was out of sight, as was Falman.

He saw Breda punch a stone wall and Al quietly sympathized as he cradled his hand.

 _Cradled_.

He saw Mustang shut the door of the ambulance, his face shadowed and mouth pressed tight. That’s where they’d put Ed because no one had thought to take along a hearse. His brother was dead.

A train might as well have hit the entire team of soldiers.Mustang looked lost.

Someone put a blanket around his shoulders some point. He hung onto it, elbows resting on his knees, staring at his feet.

Al decided now might be a good time to learn how to lie. He should know how to say he was okay because he wasn’t. He should be able to smile when he couldn’t. Lying was never a skill he kept in his repertoire but he’d always been a pretty quick learner.

He’d never learned _alone_ , though. Al buried his head in his hands. 

Hawkeye glanced at him.

She opened her mouth to speak, but for whatever reason decided against it. She brought him to a hospital.

They unwrapped the graze around his ankle and cleaned it with something that smelled bitter and sterile. He went along with it.

What else was he supposed to do?

He would be staying the night. Just until they could be sure that his bloodwork came back clean.

Funny, he didn’t remember them taking any in the first place. Al didn’t remember a lot, actually. He wasn’t sure how long he’d even been at the hospital. Al could tell the time now, though, because he could see the sun. Hawkeye sat at his side, her hand rising and falling, afraid to touch him in case he fell apart. “Do you want me to stay?” She asked.

Al didn’t reply. His head was spinning and his eyes burning. Hawkeye tried again. “ _Can_ I stay?”

His fingers curled into the bed they’d set him up on, stiff, clean, and blindingly white. He looked at it until his eyes closed on their own. He nodded.

She was there all through the night, talking to him quietly about anything that came to mind. Al never heard her talk this much, come to think of it. Her voice was thick through all of it and sometimes she would stop and her shoulders hunched.

Hawkeye was dry faced, a grim, pleading smile painted on. There was a tiny flinch, though. It was hard to notice and harder to know what it meant, but she stayed with him there for so long that Al caught on to the sign.

It was her hands.

Hawkeye aborted the motion each time it started, reaching out to him and then her eyes darkened. That’s when she would take a pause. It happened for only an _instant_ , then blended in with everything else.

Al remembered to breathe like a person, but he didn’t remember how to speak like one. He didn’t feel real.

None of this felt real.

Not the feeling of sheets on his skin or warmth that wasn’t born of sickness. Not the constant words that spilled from Hawkeye.

They seemed to come endlessly. He couldn’t pinpoint exactly what she said for the most part. It was just sound—white noise to block out and ignore.

The lights seemed to change and sometimes when his eyes wandered, the sky outside the window—it wasn’t ten feet tall—was dark and star-lit. He swore there had been a moon drifting among the clouds every now and again. Other times when Al tuned back in to reality, the room was flooded gold and it illuminated everything in a way that artificial lights never could.

Time was passing.

He couldn’t tell if it was going forward or backwards. Perhaps it lilted sideways and he was drifting through it.

She looked up, meeting his gaze deliberately.

“Alphonse?”

He looked down at his hands. He heard Hawkeye shift a little in her seat, leaning forward in an attempt to catch his eye. “Do you know how long you’ve been here?” She asked.

Al blinked and his mouth remained sealed shut. “It’s been a little over two days now. We’re at the East City general hospital.” She told him, eyebrows pressed together in a terribly pained expression. “You’re allowed to leave. Everything came back clean and they said you can go.”

“Two days.” He echoed.

Hawkeye shifted her weight. “Do you remember getting here?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do…” She hesitated. “Do you remember what happened.”

“Brother is dead.”

“Alph—“

“He’s _dead_.” He said more firmly.

She grimaced, but nodded. Al wished he could cry, but something was keeping him from doing so. His chest rose and fell like it was meant to, but it didn’t seem like he was really breathing. Al felt like he was drowning.

He never learned how to swim. He should have asked.

Al was drowning.

Her lips thinned. “You can go back to Resembool.”

His breath caught. “I—“

“You don’t have to.” Hawkeye quickly added.

Al drew in a lungful of sterile air and beat back the shudder that wanted to chase after it. He tried to compose himself, unclenching his hand and clearing the lump from his throat. His voice sounded sticky anyways, weighed down and raw. “Where is he?”

“I don’t think you shou—“

“Where’s Ed?”

She folded her hands carefully in her lap. They were shaking, he noted. “A funeral home. They were going to take him back to Resembool as soon as you were ready to.”

“Ready to... _ready to—_ “

“Al, listen.” When had she ever pleaded like this with him? He couldn’t recall. Probably because it had never happened and never will. This couldn’t happen. It was a twisted dream. Just a night terror that he’d wake up from in a fit of tears and heavy gasps, but it would be over eventually and he only needed to wait.

He could knock on Ed’s door.

They’d fight monsters.

But she was right there in front of him and Al had _felt_ it and it had been real then. Reality was just a kaleidoscope of bad outcomes that didn’t stop moving. Al was sick to his stomach and his eyes had blown wide without asking permission.

“Ready to bury him?” He breathed. Al regretted it as soon as he asked because he didn’t want an answer. Anything to avoid the confirmation and yet he couldn’t just say _stop_ before Hawkeye answered.

“If that’s what you want to do.” The sky fell again. Was it supposed to hurt more or less the second time?

“But only if you want to. This is all up to you.”

That made it worse. That made it so, so much worse. It wasn’t real. He hadn’t woken up yet.

He had and he knew that but _still_ it just couldn’t have been real.

Al almost thought he could make it untrue. If he thought hard enough maybe he could turn back time. It was time that was stolen away anyways and Al hadn’t known how much of it was passing when it did.

It was waiting like a bullet that’s already been fired, on it’s way to knock him to the ground all over again.

“Can I sleep first?”

Her face softened. “Of course.”

Al needed to sleep. He wouldn’t be able to wake up unless he did and everything was so heavy it made him ache. The second he let his eyes close it was a lost battle. Al fell down into the nothingness.

He didn’t dream.

When he woke up it was still real.

They were still in East City and Ed wasn’t.

He was dead.

It was real and Al really didn't feel like a person. He was drowning.

Someone came by and asked to speak with him. They needed a statement. A military police, if he had to take a guess. Hawkeye looked like she might kill them where they stood and the person backed off their hands raise in a surrender and apologies trailing after them like coins falling out of their pockets.

Hawkeye offered to have him stay with her until he felt well enough for the trip home. He asked for a hotel room instead.

Al saw the long moment of hesitation before she agreed.

A pair of nurses were painfully sweet to him as they switched the bandages and readied him with a small pack of extra stripes and disinfectant. Al wasn’t entirely sure if he actually thanked them or not, but they didn’t seemed to mind either way.

Their hands were warm against his and even that made Al sway on his feet. He wasn’t all the used to hands being warm again. They kept him upright like it was second nature.

Every step felt like climbing to the top of a mountain and reaching the exit was standing before a free fall.

No one knew him at the hotel. No one knew who he was or why he needed to be there. They just smiled politely.

“How long will you be staying?”

“I’m not sure.”

It was a lonely room. There were windows and it smelled clean. The door clicked shut behind him and Al was pretty sure his lungs decided to stop working.

He stayed there for all of ten minutes before he remembered why he was alone.

Al was alone because Ed wasn’t alive anymore, but he couldn’t cry. For some reason, his body wouldn’t let him. His inhales turned to gasps and gasps to hyperventilation. The creature in his gut expanded so far outwards that he didn’t even have control anymore. His voice was dead in his throat, eyes dry. Al couldn’t cry and he hated how hard it was to move.

He couldn’t cry.

There was fire inside his chest and so many mismatched emotions he gave up on trying to puzzle it out.

Al hadn’t even sat down yet when he turned to leave and dropped the key on the front desk.

His heart was bleeding and it would drown him from the inside out. There was nothing right about it, so he took off.

Al filed this particular feeling under _Fuck It_ and trusted his memories that were as old as Ed’s old pocket watch to take him to the right spot.

He knocked on Hawkeye’s door.

It turns out that she had been able to do what he couldn’t. Her eyes weren’t quiet as dry as they had been.

“I… I want to see him.” He swallowed and tried to look confident. It failed so horribly that his stomach lurched. Hawkeye’s face flickered. Again, her hand tried to reach but some other part of her tamped it down.

“Are you sure?” She asked.

Al nodded slowly. “I need to. Please.”

* * *

Hawkeye arranged it within minutes. Al was sure he caught her swipe a thumb below her cheek once, but his vision was still tunnelled and garishly out of focus.

Hawkeye and Mustang stood side by side, talking quietly about something that probably concerned him but they didn’t want him to know. They both looked tired.

Not tired like when sleep ran away and insomnia took its shift, or when coffee wasn’t enough to last through a day. They looked tired like how a glass bottle looked broken or how an old letter looked torn. It was like that by nature. Al couldn’t say he felt any better.

Hawkeye hid her hands behind her back, head bowed. Her hair fell across her face. Mustang stared straight ahead with nothing plastered over his features. Absolutely nothing.

It was flat and dull. Al walked up slowly.

The sun had no grace or dignity about it. There were no clouds to shadow its presence and spring was in full swing. Sunshine hadn’t ever looked so bright.

Bright and vivid. Like a pair of eyes.

Al fought against every emotion and sense of self that begged him to take a minute. He didn’t listen to them. What did voices know anyways?

Al needed to see his brother.

He could taste light mist in the air and birds had the audacity to be singing. Al didn’t bother with dragging his gaze up to meet theirs.

He knew what he would find.

It would be a mash of apathy and indifference. Because this wasn’t real.

(It was.)

Al didn’t know what to do.

He couldn’t cry and he couldn’t be okay and nothing made sense. It was just _bad_ and he had to deal with it for the rest of his life. For the rest of his life he might not feel like something real, just a husk taking up room.

There wasn’t a manual titled _how to be a person_ for him to read through. So he’d just keep on being nothing.

He hardly acknowledged them as he slid into the back seat. Mustang followed his example and drove off without a word.

Al glanced back. There was no reason to it. Instinct, maybe.

He saw her face buried in her hands.

When the car stopped, Al wasn’t sure if he should get out. He did ’t really want to. This was close enough so he’d just stay in this spot until he could think right again.

Mustang was frozen in place was well, waiting for Al to show signs of life—he had experience with doing that now—before breaking the silence. “You don’t have to.”

But he did. He didn’t want to but he needed to and Al thought he might just collapse right there in the back of Mustang’s car. “Al, you don’t have to do this.” Mustang sounded like he was pleading. “If you’re not ready it’s okay.”

Odd, wasn’t it. It wasn’t as though Al hadn’t already seen him. _He had._

Al had held his brother for hours after his heart stopped. He’d felt his body slump and watched his face turn grey.

God, he’d watch Ed _die_.

“I need to.”

Mustang nodded. They went inside.

* * *

They’d brushed his hair and washed his skin, cosmetics brushed on in thick coats to cover the fact that he was white and blue underneath it all. It didn’t look like Ed. It wasn’t Ed.

Al’s hand reached out before he could stop it. There was nothing _to_ stop it—no internal voice telling him that it was in poor taste. He choked when the tips of his fingers brushed against his brother’s forehead. It was ice cold and waxy. It didn’t feel like skin.

It didn’t feel like a person anymore. He was cold and dead.

Al didn’t recognize him. Al couldn’t tell it was his own brother. The weight of it all drove him to his knees. “H-he—“ His mouth was dry, hands trembling. “—he doesn’t _look_ like himself.”

What the hell had he been thinking? He shouldn’t have come here.

Al didn’t want to see this. His shoulders ached from the content tension being laced between them, eyes fixed on the ground.

Al should wake up. He should wake up so that he didn’t have to see this. That didn’t look like Ed and it wasn’t. Why he ever thought that seeing this would bring—would bring closure or peace, he didn’t know. It did the opposite. The hole in his person was growing. Ed was too still for it to really be him.

"He's not supposed to—"

“Slow down.”

“It’s not him.”

“Al, listen to me.”

“It can’t be. That isn’t my brother.”

 _“Alphonse_.”

“It’s not. _It’s_ _not_.”

Mustang gripped his arm, kneeling beside Al and looking at him with the most careful, gentle expression he’d ever seen on the older alchemist’s face. Al wanted to punch him for it, for the plain venerability struck over his features, but both hands were still locked on the side of the table. It was the only thing that kept him from knocking his head against the floor.

Mustang gave a light squeeze. “I know it’s not. I know.”

“ _Then why—_ “

“Because there’s nothing else left.” He cut Al off softly. His eyes were narrowed, face grim.

At first, Al thought he had been determined in some way. Trying to right the wrong, or be strong in some ridiculous, childish and toothless notion of bravery. It had lit up a quite rage inside the pit of Al’s stomach right where the _thing_ has been chewing at him.

He’d been wrong. That wasn’t it. Face to face, Al could see that the older man was no better than he was.

His eyes weren’t half lidded and indifferent out of obligation. They were bloodshot and watery.

“It’s not him, I know. This is all there is.”

“ _It’s not fair_.” Al breathed.

The older man blinked hard a few times. “You can leave if you need to.” Mustang told him.

“I…” Did he need to leave? _Should_ he? “I’ll be back in a minute.” He turned and marched right out the door before Mustang could call out and broke into a run. There was a frigid feeling pooling in the bottom of his lungs, sloshing up his throat and leaving him rather breathless.

He ran until he could taste fresh air because the world around him had become a blur and the watercolour painting of his surroundings was smeared to hell and back. Al looked around wildly and found nothing distinct to latch on to other than a streak of black that must be the road they’d driven in on, and a boxy thing a little ways behind him that he could only assume was Mustang’s car.

Blood pumped through his ears in a light roar. Al couldn’t see straight.

What was he supposed to do?

Footsteps followed him. Mustang was silent.

“I want to go home.” Al whispered.

“Okay.”

* * *

Arrangements were made over the next day, train tickets handed out to a select few members of the military (dozens of telegrams too, to Dublith and Rush Valley all the way to the north) and all of them wore the same tired expression.

They had been refusing sleep, if the dark bags were anything to go off of. Al caught sight of a lot of bowed heads and shadowed faces. They were trying to hide just like he was.

In the morning Mustang drove Al all the way out to the countryside. It took up most of the day. Maybe it was because he didn’t trust Al to take a train now. Maybe it was cheaper to drive.

The older man had informed the funeral home that they were ready to head off and Mustang made a few calls. There was going to be a service soon.

It was happening too fast.

A petty, selfish part of him said _pull it together_. _This is your job._

_You should be putting these things in place and standing on your own. You’re grown now._

He’s also alone now. He wasn’t so sure about being grown either.

He was feeling awfully small at the moment and younger than he had been before all this. So Al told that part of himself to _bite it_ and kept on dwelling inside his own mind. It was a lonely place, he found. It was drab and dull because at every turn there was a memory with his brother standing front and centre, soaking in the limelight and grinning.

Ed was there through all of it and he couldn’t really figure out how to separate one thing from the other.

Al just sat in the backseat with his head leaning against the window, crossing his fingers for rain.

Rain would suit this far better.

The sun was too vibrant.

If only the sky would just crack open and cry so Al didn’t have to. It only made sense. Something had stolen that ability from him so it should go to the sky instead so it could cry for him.

As loudly and thunderously as possible. It didn’t rain, though.

Because since when did the world care about how he felt or what he wanted? It wouldn’t weep for him. It wouldn’t even slow its spinning and give him a second to feel real, to stop drowning instead of the numb, half sentient state he’d been trapped in.

The world had the gall to be beautiful and Al was able to see it.

Ed wasn’t.

He was in a casket. He knew it was a casket because he overheard one of those calls Mustang had made and the word struck him across the face when it was spoken.

Al was dreaming.

It had been lucid for days and unending. He was sick in the head and sick in the heart. It was a _condition_.

Maybe he could un-sign the contract that reality would right itself. Because it was standing tall and proud now and he’d rather not know the time of day and just have his brother back.

This couldn’t be happening. Al had the thought playing on loop but there was no other way to express the emptiness that was filling him up. There was going to be a funeral for his brother and Al had never existed without him before. He wasn’t sure he knew how.

He should have asked.

Maybe that’s why he didn’t feel like a person anymore. Mustang didn’t say much on the trip.

The hours passed quicker than they ever had before. He watched the landscape stroll past. It remained beautiful up until night started to fall. The setting sun bragged its colours, splashed over the sky and devoid of even a wisp of clouds. Salt in the wound.

Nail in the coffin.

Dirt on the casket.

Al couldn’t cry for a long time. A lump was perpetually in his throat, eyes stinging and every part of him begging for some kind of outlet, but he couldn’t. Maybe that release was the price for surviving.

Ed had taken the blow so now Al’s eyes wouldn’t do the thing they were supposed to do and Truth would be laughing like a manic because this was just _so fucking funny_.

When they got to Resembool, though, something in him snapped.

The piece that was missing tried to fill, but there was still nothing so it collapsed inwardly like a star—like the sun—and Al stared out over the little town. The hills spread out in dark quilts, houses lighting up the peaks like candles against the night, flowers spread by the roadside in delicate bundles.

He watched the night sink across everything, the horizon swallowing up light. It was simply stunning.

Stunning, incredible, and so so _wrong_. It had a piece missing from the middle, just like Al did. One more tragedy for his list: he didn’t have a home anymore.

He never really stopped to dwell on the thought before because he’d bounced from hotels to the homes of friends or peers for so long that the _physical_ stopped mattering. He thought home was Resembool.

The familiar and gentle. He thought it was the house on the hill that was alway waiting for him. He thought that home was the place he alway sort of wanted to be, even though the whims of curiosity and the tantalizing nature of travel tugged him in the other direction.

It was revealed to him now that… it wasn’t. His home was gone as well. They were one and the same, as it so happens.

How childish of him to think that the word could be pasted onto a building. Of course it couldn’t. He felt like an idiot for thinking that was ever the case.

Al couldn’t stop once it started.

Because this wasn’t even home anymore. It felt like there was _something missing_ and of course Al knew exactly what it was and he knew just as well that there was no way to fix that. There wasn’t anything that could make it right or ease the vicious _hurt_ that was steering him into the ground.

He had never existed without his brother. Al never learned how.

He should have asked.

Resembool was silent because it didn’t even know it was broken yet. No one had told the town hidden by the hills that it was damaged and chipped. Al didn’t cover his face or duck his head.

He just cried.

Mustang pulled him into a gentle hug. “I’m sorry.”

His voice was breaking.

Because of course it was. How could it not. Ed was gone.

Gone.

“I’m so sorry.” It was breaking.

Al buried his head into the older alchemist’s shoulder and a strangled sob ripped out of his mouth. Al just cried.

 _Gone_. It was such a small word but it was too great to wrap himself around. Al wished he could say this had something to do with a refusal to bend to the hypothetical, but it wasn’t hypothetical. It wasn’t a theory in a book or an invention at a fair.

The word was just too big all on its own. The gravity that it carried was overwhelming.

It was the hole in him that would alway be there.

He wasn’t gone as in he found the perfect hiding spot by the creek they used to play in and wasn’t going to come out. He wasn’t gone as in there was some vacation time stacked up and ready for use. No, he was a different kind of gone.

Ed was gone as in never coming back; as in bruised and bloodless; as in waiting to be put under the ground and dissolve; as in unable to seal up the cracks in Al’s armour like he alway had since they were children because home was never Resembool it was _him_.

 _Gone_ as in dead.

There was no sunrise.

Of course Mustang’s voice was breaking. The sky started to fracture.

It didn’t care for convenience or tact. How many times would it hit him all over again, Al wondered.

Again, it seemed the places had been switched. Instead of hugging his brother it was just another person who was being dragged down by grief. He didn’t get the privilege of a lifeline, just someone else who was drowning right there with him and there was no comfort to be taken in the fact that they were going down together, or that Hawkeye and Winry and everyone else who’d known Ed were taking the plunge as well.

He wondered if the irony was on purpose or just cruel coincidence.

Al’s frame trembled because here comes the sky once again, falling down in a tidal wave. It threw him down and maybe he’d never get back up again. It wasn’t fair.

And Al knew damn well that he was a broken record repeating wishes he'd run out of, wanting to wake up or feel real or fight monsters. He knew he was a broken record or maybe just broken and that’s it, but it really wasn’t fair. When would enough be enough? When could he wake up, run on over to Ed’s room and be there without interruption or aguish.

“He’s not coming back. I don’t know what to do.” Al gripped the fabric of Mustang’s jacket and tried not to sink to his knees. His breath hitched and he _couldn’t stop_. There had been a floodgate locked shut for days and it was open now, pouring out the grief that he wished didn’t exist at all and Al suffocated on perfectly pristine air. “What am I supposed to do.”

The older alchemist didn’t even notice that his shoulder was being soaked in salt water. “There’s nothing you _can_ do.”

In and out, in take in the smell of rainless fields. This wasn’t supposed to happen.

They’d done it. They had a fucking right to their lives and it was gone in a instant.

An instant

 _Instantly_. Al could feel himself shaking apart. There was a hole in his stomach and a monster making it bigger. His heart had been left behind somewhere but blood was still pumping and _god_ he really had meant what he said to Ed.

He wished it had been him instead.

It was an instant. That was the time in which he slipped away. An instant.

That’s how Ed died. That's how everyone died.

There was nothing to be said or done to change that. It was a summation of truth. He died a single instant that would hang off Al’s back until his instant came as well.

Ed died for no better reason than being too human to survive. Just like everyone else.

There was no comfort in it. There was no peace in the fact that Ed wasn’t suffering or having life pushed into him when he didn’t want it.

Al didn’t know everything about his brother. He only found that out as he started to die and he would not ever stop regretting that. He couldn’t know the exacts of what Ed would think or want. What he would say. What he would do.

But still.

Al was pretty sure…

_He was pretty sure Ed would rather be alive._

Al clung to Mustang and cried as his mind turned in circles. He couldn’t see Mustang’s face and he didn’t want to, because whatever expression was there would only drive another nail into the coffin.

(It was a casket.)

Ed didn’t die because it was his time or some toothless fable of the likes. He died because someone stuck a needle in his arm and the report he’d found in Mustang’s glovebox said it had been anthrax poisoning his system.

Nothing could change that and no amount of hating the world would make it do a backtrack on its decision and no measure of agony would seal the empty spot in this stupid little farming town that wasn’t home anymore.

Mustang didn’t let go until Al did. Even then a hand still stayed on his shoulder. The man’s eyes matched Hawkeye’s. This was impossible.

Neither of them even tried to smile. It wasn’t like putting a foot forward to walk down a street—they were striding into an ocean.

The older alchemist breathed in carefully and deliberately. He looked Al in the eyes. “You ready to go home?”  
Al didn’t have the heart to tell him it wasn’t home anymore. He nodded.

* * *

Pinako opened the door before Al had a chance to knock. She sighed and said good evening. Al said it back.

Lucid dreaming used to be a cool trick to flaunt in a classroom and now he didn’t want it. “Winry’s upstairs. I figured you’d want to see her.”

Al nodded and the older woman gestured. “Go on.”

He waited outside her door for a while, then walked back down the steps and slipped out the back door. He should have gone in. Said something kind to ease her pain and been profound in the moment but that wasn’t something he was capable of.

Al was an alchemist. He couldn’t write poetry when it suited him. There was nothing profound to say. There was no meaning to glean from any of this other than this existence of absence.

Al was an alchemist, not a poet. He would hurt people without the flowery words so it was better to sit outside with real flowers and hope he could soak them in enough to be graceful in his speech. He dealt in facts; numbers and symbols that got assigned meaning by someone he didn’t care to research and it all worked correctly.

But his heart wasn’t there anymore. It had been left behind or torn out or maybe he’d just stuffed it in his pocket and forgot. It would be there collecting lint until one day he reached for a coin and found something withered and tried instead.

Fact: they’d been kidnapped.

Fact: Al was alive.

Fact: Ed wasn’t.

As it turns out Winry was more impatient than he was. She found him and sat down. “Welcome back,” her voice was strung out and weathered.

“Good to be back,” Al said replied.

The floodgates opened again. They collapsed on one another and it felt awful. There was something ugly that came out of them both as they sobbed more openly than he could remember having done before. He wasn’t on the clock anymore.

There wasn’t anything to make it easier. So they just cried together. There’s no way to stop a heartbreak. You can’t even slow it down. He sobbed as loudly as he wanted because he had a right to it. If nothing else, Al had fucking earned that.

He he didn’t get his rest and the rest of his life to live, than at the very least he was owed the license to scream when he needed to and _god_ he needed to.

There was nothing ahead of him but everything was behind. Winry’s nails dug into his arm as she slowly pushed herself away and scrubbed at her face and trying to slow down the series of hiccups that had been coming out in strange gasps.

“God I—“ She sniffed. “I know it’s only been a few days b-but… I _really_ miss him.” Her inhale shook.

“Me too.” Al bit his lip as it trembled.

“I’m sorry that I wasn’t there when they got you out.”

“Winry I… I need to tell you something.”

“What?” She croaked.

“He—Ed, he…” Air left his lungs and it was dark out. There hadn’t been enough wishes or miracles and before he can even understand that he really, truly doesn’t have the heart to say it, he says it. “He said he was scared.”

Al buried his face in his hands. “ _God_ , Winry that was the last thing he told me. It was the last thing. He was scared and I—“

“Oh Al,” Her face twisted. His chest heaved, up and down. He needed to say it before it killed him too.

“He was _scared_ , Winry. I-I couldn’t even do anything. I just sat there and he _died_.”

“It was _not_ your fault.” She said fiercely, even as tears welled up again and her voice caught.

“He was _scared_.”

Winry fell silent for a minute and Al hid his face. He could hear crickets humming away in a low chorus and a little whistle of a breeze pulling at his hair. He kept on going back and thinking there would be another page. Somehow Ed was alright and the next chapter of his life would start off with _I told you so_.

He barked out a bitter laugh. “I don’t know. I keep thinking there’s going to be more.”

“More?”

“That he’ll be _back_.” Al admitted. His hands curled. “There was still a lot we were going to do and I just… there’s meant to be more, isn’t there?”

The wind tugged at him. The half dead flowers were mostly weeds. Al found himself relating to them a little, their faces tilted up desperately looking for the sun. There was no meaning in this. No purpose or point or lesson. It was senseless and Al knew that eventually he’d have to sweep up all the pieces and try to exist again.

Winry touched his arm. “Let’s go back inside.”

* * *

A few days later those train tickets were put to use and people started to show up. They came to see him. They came to tell him things he didn’t want to hear.

Townsfolk apologized like that would help him forgive the world for its crimes. It wouldn’t. Neighbours brought flowers like their bright colours could revive him. They couldn’t. Each of them meant well and Al had to swallow back so many cries that his throat grew raw from keeping them down. His eyes never stopped wanting to fall shut.

Al didn’t dream. Not even a night terror.

Mustang’s team all dropped by in the late afternoon wielding no words and with Hawkeye entirely absent. Mustang put them all up at the same local inn he was staying at. The man hadn’t come back since Al used his shoulder to cry on and he wondered if it had something to do with the fact that his apology wasn’t hollow like everyone else’s.

Havoc offered a weak smile alongside Breda. Al noticed that his hand was wrapped—he must’ve broken it when they found Ed. Furey tried to give his well wishes but turned and excused himself only a few minutes into the visit, pulling off his glasses and pretending to clean them so he wouldn’t have to meet Al’s gaze.

Falman went with him to stand outside.

Al didn’t really mind. They came and went so quietly it almost felt like they hadn’t come at all because in his years of knowing them, Al had never known them to be _silent_. They didn’t know what to say and neither did he, so they exchanged quick nods and nothing more.

Others drifted into town. News was passed around like a tin can on a string between children and instead of joy it brought shocks so tremulous their faces all seemed the same, lips pulled into lines and eyes dim.

No sunlight. No brightness.

The sky was sick with it’s own beauty all through it. Al checked on Winry and she checked on him. He would be lying if he said they didn’t spend their evenings doing a repeat of that first night. He’d be lying if he said he knew what time it was, despite the fact that he now how all the tools to be able to tell, from the planet’s turning to the clicking of clockwork contraptions.

Time seemed to sway, slowing and stopping, swooping and stilted.

Hawkeye came, eventually.Al had seen her cry only once before, years ago when they still had the world to worry about and inhuman beings to fight. Now there was only one pretty wooden box and the person inside of it to look after and the monsters ran rampant.

They were invisible. That was the real trick—you can’t defend yourself from what you can’t see.

Al had been by himself when she arrive. The weeds beside him stretched up towards the light and he felt jealous of their persistence.

He saw her shoes before the rest of her. She looked tired like old letters and broken bottles. Al stared up at the woman for a moment and then a wane, unsteady smile cracked over her face. Her eyes matched Al’s.

He came outside a lot because the plants needed water and the sky was refusing to rain so he decided to pick up the slack. There weren’t enough wishes, so he just did it himself. It looked like Hawkeye was here to do the same.

“Sorry I’m late.”

* * *

The service was in the afternoon and Al didn’t want to go. He couldn’t do it. He want to stay where he was, curled up in bed.

It wasn’t even his bed.

He thought that he wouldn’t be able to go into this spare room that had basically been assigned to Ed halfway through rehabilitation. Something about the memory being too painful or nostalgia that would sink into him like poison.

It wasn’t poison. He’d seen what that could do.

Al was sure that there would be some kind of force field ringing certain spots that would make him think too hard, but there wasn’t. All he had to do was walk inside and that was that.

He made himself sick from grief and only _got_ up to _throw_ up. Attached to every item there were memories and attached to every memory was his brother and Al—

—didn’t know what to do.

The guilt was unbearable but there was no way he would be able to go and faced everyone. Al couldn’t take the teary eyes and soft exchanges, whispering like a ghost would overhear whatever they said.

He didn’t want to watch Ed be lowered into a pit or have people come up to shake his hand. He couldn’t take the dozens of people saying _I’m sorry for your loss_ and hugging him firmly when he didn’t want anyone to touch him. The handshakes would make him want to jerk away because he wasn’t entirely used to hands being warm again. He couldn’t hear them ask if he was doing okay because he hadn’t ever learned how to lie.

He should have asked.

Al wasn’t okay. It was an easy fact but he couldn’t say that. He wouldn’t be able to speak without sobbing or nod without getting vertigo.

He didn’t want to go and see the person who wasn’t really Ed, laying there in a casket dressed up nicely. He wouldn’t be able to handle the sneak attacks of sympathy or the bruising that would appear on his wrist from how many people would want to grip it as if that was some kind of hopeful gesture.

Al didn’t want to see another headstone on his families plot, or to throw down a flower and a a handful of dirt. There was nothing comforting in a eulogy. Ed never even really believed in god so it would just sound like a curse in his ears.

Maybe Winry would hate him for it. Maybe everyone would hate him for it.

Fine.

He couldn’t go. Al want to stay home because it was just now setting in that Ed was going to be buried today he should probably get used to it.

It wasn’t going to suddenly change.

Over a week had passed and he knew that because he could see the sky and count the days but that didn’t make it feel any less hazy. Al didn’t get a refund on the lost time. He was curled up with a pillow clutched to his chest when the door creaked open and a lick of sunlight fluttered from behind the blinds. He felt a weight settle on the bed, dipping down.

“You ready?” Winry asked.

“No.”

“Me neither.”

The service was in the afternoon and Al went because he wouldn’t have forgiven himself if he didn’t. He bided his time with a pen in hand, trying to figure out what he could possibly say.

There was no way to contextualize a life or rationalize death. There wasn’t some avenue to turn down that would reveal some great meaning that had been ascribed to all the pain he was feeling. Because it wasn’t there. Al couldn’t fit his brother into a piece of paper any more than a casket could carry his body like how his soul did.

Al wished once.

Then twice, then three times. He’d used them all up forever again but it still wasn’t raining. Al didn’t know how to do this. He tried to do it anyways because everyone was expecting him to slot Ed’s existence into a package and tie it up with a bow. They expect him to say something profound and uplifting or at the very least comforting but there wasn’t any place to find comfort.

A eulogy for someone he still didn’t know how to live without. How was Al supposed to do that?

He tried to write out the thoughts but halfway through it turned into a series of equations and formulas that he remembered from when they tried to go against nature. He’d gotten halfway through drawing a transmutation circle without even realizing it.

Al threw the papers out.

It was viciously sunny. Al didn’t feel like he was really there. Maybe he wasn’t.

It was stuck in between a dream and a nightmare, caught by reality. He could recognize faces and voices but wasn’t able to put them together. They were all here for the same reason and Al could pinpoint the holes in all of them. Some had it running them through their arms or legs, tacked on to extremities. Less has them dotted over the sides of their bodies and a careful few had a piece missing from their chest. He had never exited without his brother.

He had never been to a funeral without his brother. But it was Ed this time and he was going down, down under the earth just like everything else did and it hurt like hell but _they weren't special_. Ed wasn’t an exception to the rule.

He was human. So was Al, even if he really didn’t feel like he was.

It happened in a blur, whizzing past him. Al only came back to himself when there were suddenly eyes fixed on him, sidelong and head on alike.

They all looked at him and he could feel what they were saying even if they didn’t open their mouths. It rang through the air so loudly he winced when someone new cast him a glance.

They looked as though to say _hey, you’re his brother_. _Aren’t you going up?_

He should say something. Al never figured out what to say. He’d thrown out the papers. Al didn’t know how to do this unless he told all of then to stay put for exactly eighteen years and listened to a long goddamn story he didn’t know half of.

Their eyes strayed to him anyways. _You’re his brother_.

Al wasn’t special. He wasn’t any more thoughtful then they were. He was just hurting.

Things moved in instants and when he felt Ed’s hand loosen he missed him instantly. That’s all there was. No one wants to hear the words of someone so far under they couldn’t see the surface. They expected a calm.

All he had to offer was the storm.

“Do you want to say something?” Winry asked.

Al shook his head, chewing at his lip. “No, I don’t think I can.”

“Are you sure?” Her voice drifted from questioning to pleading.“Just a few words?”

“I can’t.” He bit out.

“Al—“

He cut her off. “I really can’t.”

Winry’s eyebrows creased, her lips pulled tight and dry. He had to look away. Finally, Al heard the reply. “Okay... that’s okay.”

How many times could the sky fall.

It was coming down again. His head started to pound. His heart was missing or bleeding or had a hole in it. Whatever.

It was being twisted around and thrown against the sides of his ribs like the worlds bloodiest and most fragile battering ram. It was already sluggish and hurting; surely this would break it. People started to shuffle, with flowers in their hands and tears in their eyes. The children didn’t understand any of it.

Neither did Al. Someone had decided on daisies and they were being dropped down, two by two. His stomach flipped. The creature finally stopped its tirade and slept in some hollow part of his chest cavity.

His voice came in a gasp. “I’m sorry Winry. I-I can’t be here.” His feet started to move back on their own, away from the people, away from the eyes and away from Ed.

“Al, wait.” Winry reached for him. He staggered back another few steps.

“I can’t do it. I can’t watch him be buried—“ Ed wasn’t always easy to love. He spoke with the voice of a firecracker and sometimes he wasn’t the brother that Al wanted, but was always the one he had. He was always just _there_.

How do you put a life into a _context_?

It couldn’t just be one thing but everyone who went to a service had places to be and mourning to do in their own ways.

He was a brother, a friend, a whatever to someone and another thing to every stranger on the street. How do you say goodbye to someone who still hasn’t walked out the door?

Al was getting sick of not knowing. He didn’t have answers.

There was no _because_ to match the _why_ and he just wanted to feel like a human being instead of this _thing_. A thing full of devastation and tears he didn’t know how to ride out, coated in denial like a child was swathed in layers to save them from frostbite.

Just like a child.

No lights to turn on and no older brother to run to. It wasn’t fair and nothing was going to make it untrue. Nothing from alchemy to rain. He couldn’t be here. “—I’m sorry.”

* * *

Al found a good place to be.

It was under this big tulip tree with its branches swooping upwards. All the shrubs and flicks of grass around its roots were wilting. Maybe the tree was eating up too much of the water in the soil, or maybe the branches were creating a canopy too complete for sunlight to leak through.

It was a good spot because all these things were in need on water and he had some to spare. Granted, Al had his head tucked against his knees, back flattened against the trunk.

He’d been there for a good while. People were probably looking for him. The service was over, no doubt.

“Hey,” A voice appeared from nowhere.

Ad couldn’t recall hearing anyone approaching and it wasn’t who he was anticipating. Al thought that it would be Winry. Maybe Pinako. There was a slim chance that a neighbour from down the road would have stumbled across him.

By some stroke of bad luck, it was Mustang. Al hadn’t seen him since getting to Resembool, but somehow he’d popped back up at the worst possible time.

Yet Al was still glad it was him. He didn’t want to break into pieces and cry in front of Winry again because she was such a violently empathetic person that she alway ended up crying too. He didn’t want that knowing look from Pinako or the sighs of people he hadn’t really spoken to in months.

He was glad because Mustang was where he was and he had _been there_. They were _drowning_.

“Hi.” Al croaked back, lifting his head just enough to see the man’s feet.

“Are you doing alright?”

Al spat out a bitter laugh. “Of _course_ I’m not.”

“Sorry.”

He blinked, rubbing at his eyes with the heel of his hand and slowly forcing himself to unfurl. He’d been curled up so tightly that unwinding made him feel sore. He slumped against the tree and managed to look up.

Mustang was still tired.

Dressed formally with thumbprints under his eyes and a flower sticking out of his pocket. Al looked him up and down for a moment. Mustang didn’t call him on the fact that he was picking him apart.

“Are you?” Al asked after a moment.

He smiled weakly. “Of course I’m not.” He threw a glance over his shoulder. Al suspected it had something to do with privacy, giving Al a moment to scrub off his face a little better and gulp down the lump in his throat. “It was a nice service.” Mustang told him.

“I didn’t want to go.” He admitted in turn.

He took a half step forward. A slight breeze came snaking through the fields, nudging at Al and running through his hair. Mustang set his jaw in an attempt to seem confident or determined, but he just seemed sad. Sad and exhausted and probably ready to do some watering of his own. Maybe Al should offer him a spot.

“Is... is there anything we—I can do?” Mustang stumbled over it just a little. Al pressed his hand against his face again because it really just _wouldn’t stop_. Not now, not ever.

He shoved down the gasps hiccup that tried to break out, his voice still dense and uneven. “No.”

“Anything, really.”

He shrugged, his feet shifting against the grass and leaving depressions in the dirt. “I don’t know.”

“You can alway ask.” Another half step. His voice was still breaking. It had never stopped and maybe Al’s sounded like that too and he just hadn’t noticed yet. “Me, Hawkeye, anyone.”

“I don’t know. I just—“ A quiet sob made him stop. Al shut his eyes and fought against the urge to curl up again. Instead he kept them open and looked up. It was late in the afternoon. It still refused to rain and the sun was right there. No matter how many times he tried to dry his face, Al couldn’t stop it.

“Alphonse?”

“ _I want my brother_.”

Al had missed the sun but he only ever needed one. The sun that brought his fists to gunfights and could beat any star that tried him. The one who was in all the memories and by his side through the worst of it, even through the night when light was scarce.

A flaming ball in the sky didn’t have _shit_ on his brother.

It was all real.

Al missed the sun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you'll excuse me, I need to start running before y'all pull out the pitchforks.

**Author's Note:**

> ..........  
> I can explain. Listen. I can explain.  
> No I can't.  
> My other fics are getting pushed back so I can post this one. You can come kill me for it on [tumblr](https://liathgray.tumblr.com). I apologize for this in advanced.


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